Quo vadis, Euroland? European Monetary Union between Crisis and Reform

Martin Hellwig ()
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Martin Hellwig: Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, Bonn

No 2011_12, Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods from Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods

Abstract: This lecture discusses the 2010 crisis of the European Monetary Union and draws some lessons for reform. Crisis resolution has been difficult because the sovereign debt crisis of countries like Greece and Portugal has come together with real-estate and banking crises in countries like Ireland and Spain and bank vulnerability in countries like Germany and France. Failure to disentangle and resolve the different crises prevents a satisfactory approach to the long-term reform of governance of sovereign borrowing and banking. Any such reform must find a substitute for the discipline that exchange rate mechanisms impose on sovereign borrowers and their lenders when the currency is national. Any mechanism for imposing discipline on sovereign borrowers and their lenders must be designed so that enforcement is credible even in a crisis. Recommendations for reform include (i) an inclusion of sovereign exposure from too-big-to-fail concerns in banking in monitoring of fiscal stance, (ii) independence of bank supervisors from their respective political authorities, and (iii) a strengthening of the powers of the European Supervisory Authorities over the national supervisors.

Keywords: European Monetary Union; sovereign debt crisis; bank supervision (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F33 F36 F53 G28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-eec and nep-mon
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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