Establishing the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union: When the Idea of Europe Mattered

Abstract

The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) represents one of the highest levels of interstate economic integration ever witnessed in world history. However, it did not arrive without difficulties. Strictly speaking, it took three decades, many sub-agreements, and countless hours of negotiations and complex and active work for the EMU to be fully realised. The first ideas of, and practical efforts toward, the establishment of the EMU were outlined in 1960s within the European Community. The Werner Committee officially presented a 3-stage plan on October 8, 1970 for achieving the union. But the plan ran into a series of deep crises throughout the 1970s that resulted in its de facto suspension. The early 1990s saw a revision of the plan by the Delors Committee, and its eventual successful implementation. There is much academic literature analysing these events. However, scholars differ in their interpretation of the facts, and therefore it still remains unclear why it was impossible to effectively implement the project in the 1970s and why it became achievable in the 1990s. In other words, why did the EMU fail in the 1970s and why did it succeed in the 1990s? This paper seeks to answer this important question.