We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 December 2023
The CES shares its golden anniversary with the Werner Report, a major milestone on the road to EMU. Although it was not the first high-level study on this subject, the Werner Report was the first to be taken up by member states, which set 1980 as a target date for the irrevocable fixing of exchange rates by current and aspiring members of the EC. This commitment was dropped amid the economic turmoil that followed the demise of the Bretton Woods System and the first oil shock. But the Werner Report's vision of what is needed to make EMU work has endured, more so, in some respects, than the Delors Report, which formed the blueprint for the euro's eventual launch in 1999.
Asymmetry
The Delors Report envisaged an asymmetric EMU. Monetary policy was placed under the control of a single decision-making body while economic policy remained in the hands of member states. The report implicitly rejected the link between EMU and political union, concluding that a Community with a single currency could “continue to consist of individual nations with differing economic, social, cultural and political characteristics … and autonomy in economic decision-making” (Committee for the Study of Economic and Monetary Union 1989: 17).
No mention was made in the Delors Report of a fiscal transfer mechanism. Preoccupied with the harmful effects of national economic policies on monetary policy and the Community's economic situation more generally, it instead proposed that macroeconomic policy be subject to binding procedures and rules. So was born the excessive deficit procedure (and later the Stability and Growth Pact), with its threat of financial penalties and fines against member states that posted excessive budget deficits and unsustainable public debt. A coordinated rather than a centralized approach to banking supervision was also proposed.
The Werner Report imagined a more symmetrical EMU in which monetary policy was delegated to a Community organ modeled on the United States Federal Reserve, while economic policy was subject to the control of a supranational Centre of Decision for Economic Policy. It saw political union not only as essential for the sustainability of EMU but an inevitable consequence of it.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
