This book offers a critical perspective from which to observe evolution of the Euro Area and the European Union in these times of growing economic and political conflict. Key implications of design failures in the Euro Area (i.e. incorrect diagnostics of the public finance crisis, single monetary policy failure, heterogeneous macroeconomic environment, asymmetry in macroeconomic policies, obstacles for policy coordination) and their contribution to the excessive external and internal economic imbalances will be critically discussed from the economic, policy and institutional perspectives. This critical insight is used to examine both institutional asset and economic performance of Europe after the crisis, moving from the authors' shared perspective that the crisis revealed the weak aspects of the whole architecture of the European Union. The economic crisis revealed the existence of different forms of imbalances inside the Eurozone and highlighted the flaws of the institutional architecture of economic policy in Europe. The greater fragility of some countries in respect to others has triggered a backward process in which national interests have started to prevail over those of both the currency area and the entire European Union. In turn, this has fuelled a progressive decline in confidence in the European institutions and is creating growing questions of interpretation both in terms of economic theory and institutional asset. This book focuses on these issues and on the degree of legitimacy of the European institutions resulting therefrom. It aims to investigate the nature and validity of the European integration process emphasizing limits and challenges arising from it.

Following the 2008 financial crisis, the Eurozone faced a major challenge to many of its most widely held beliefs around both short- and long-term economic policy. Contrary to what had been the received wisdom, it suddenly became clear that financial institutions can fail, that low interest rates are often unable to stimulate the economy, that the unemployment gap is still very large, and that external and internal imbalances are becoming more entrenched. Such sudden revelations left economists grasping for answers. Rosaria Rita Canale and Rajmund Mirdala outline the economic orthodoxies that led to such massive blind spots, and they shed light on the emerging paradigms that continue to struggle to offer convincing frameworks that address what happened and what to do next. They show how dominant economic theories led to a progressive devaluing of the idea that coordinated economic policy offers an effective way of maintaining macroeconomic equilibrium, and they illustrate how the new economic environment calls for a new role for economic policy, one that allows for a more maneuverable monetary policy and a more active fiscal policy. What they ultimately suggest is that this renewed framework of cooperation among policy instruments would require a general rethinking of the political equilibria within the Eurozone, as a stable economic environment cannot be maintained at the expense of particular countries. For its systematic analyses of the economic policy framework of the Eurozone, and for the rigor of its critiques of current ideas about how to move forward, Fiscal and Monetary Policy in the Eurozone is essential reading for postgraduate students of economics, and it is of keen interest to researchers, policymakers, journalists, and financial strategists.