Discussion Paper
No. 2016-44 | November 03, 2016
Francesco Farina and Roberto Tamborini
"Completing Europe's Economic and Monetary Union". Any Support from the Citizens?
(Published in Policy Paper)

Abstract

The aim of the 'Five Presidents Report' cited in the title acknowledges that an important driver of the European economic crisis has been the faulty original design of the Monetary Union, and that substantial steps are urgently needed towards the creation of truly supranational institutions. Yet economists tend to neglect that however compelling economic analyses may be, the stumbling block on the way of the reform of the Monetary Union is political will, and that in democracies the ultimate source of political will comes from electors. In this paper, first of all the authors wish to bring to the economists' attention some recent analyses of citizens' attitudes towards Europe from political science. Then, by cross-referencing the results of the 2014 elections of the European Parliament with Eurobarometer opinion polls eliciting judgements for the EU vis-à-vis home countries and an indicator of economic pain, they show the presence of a geo-economic-political cleavage across four groups of countries. This is more complex, and perhaps worse, than the simplistic divide between 'North' and 'South' or 'Core' and 'Periphery'. The main implication is that the EU experiences a stalemate between 'more Europe vs. less Europe' at the level of peoples, which seriously undermines support for further integration 'from below'.

JEL Classification:

E02, E42

Links

Cite As

[Please cite the corresponding journal article] Francesco Farina and Roberto Tamborini (2016). "Completing Europe's Economic and Monetary Union". Any Support from the Citizens? Economics Discussion Papers, No 2016-44, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. http://www.economics-ejournal.org/economics/discussionpapers/2016-44


Comments and Questions



Fritz Breuss - Invited Reader Comment
November 15, 2016 - 08:14
see attached file

Gian Cesare Romagnoli - Policy paper
November 23, 2016 - 17:53
No message

Anonymous - Referee Report 1
December 05, 2016 - 09:15
see attached file

Francesco Farina and Roberto Tamborini - Reply to Referee Report 1
January 09, 2017 - 08:35
see attached file

Francesco Farina and Roberto Tamborini - Reply to Reader Comments by Fritz Breuss and Gian Cesare Romagnoli
December 12, 2016 - 08:54
see attached file

Anonymous - Referee Report 2
January 30, 2017 - 08:28
see attached file

Francesco Farina and Roberto Tamborini - Reply to Referee Report 2
February 20, 2017 - 08:33
see attached file