Economic thought at the European Commission and the creation of EMU (1957-1991)

Ivo Maes

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY, 2010, issue 2, 63-80

Abstract: To understand macroeconomic and monetary thought at the European Commission, two elements are crucial: firstly, the Rome Treaty, as it determined the mandate of the Commission and, secondly, the economic ideas in the different countries of the European Community, as economic thought at the Commission was to a large extent a synthesis and compromise of the main schools of thought in the Community. Initially, economic thought at the Commission was mainly a fusion of French and German ideas, with a certain predominance of French ideas. Later, Anglo-Saxon ideas would gain ground. At the beginning of the 1980s, the Commission?s analytical framework became basically medium-term oriented, with an important role for supply-side and structural elements and a more cautious approach towards discretionary stabilisation policies. This facilitated the process of European integration, in the monetary area too, as consensus on stabilityoriented policies was a crucial condition for EMU. Over the years, the Commission has taken its role as guardian of the Treaties and initiator of Community policies very seriously, not least in the monetary area. It has always advocated a strengthening of economic policy coordination and monetary cooperation. In this paper, we first focus on the different schools which have been shaping economic thought at the Commission. This is followed by an analysis of the Rome Treaty, especially the monetary dimension. Thereafter, we go into the EMU process and the initiatives of the Commission to further European monetary integration. We will consider three broad periods: the early decades, the 1970s, and the Maastricht process.

Keywords: EMU; Governance economica; Cooperazione monetaria; Commissione Europea (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 B20 E60 F02 N14 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.francoangeli.it/riviste/Scheda_Riviste. ... 826&Tipo=ArticoloPDF (text/html)
Single articles can be downloaded buying download credits, for info: https://www.francoangeli.it/DownloadCredit

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fan:spespe:v:html10.3280/spe2010-002004

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.francoang ... o.aspx?IDRivista=121

Access Statistics for this article

HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY is currently edited by FrancoAngeli

More articles in HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT AND POLICY from FrancoAngeli Editore
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Stefania Rosato ().