ABSTRACT

From its beginnings, better economic cooperation and coordination between the European states was paramount for the European Union (EU) and its predecessor organizations, i.e. the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) founded in 1951 and the European Economic Community (EEC) established in 1957. This was lifted to a new stage with the founding of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in 1992 and accompanying special institutions such as the common currency – the Euro – and the European Central Bank (ECB). The EMU remit also covers joint monetary policy and macro-economic coordination. While initially the Euro was hailed by many as a symbol of and major step towards an ‘ever closer Union’, with the onset of the economic debt crisis – often called Euro crisis – it became the source of contestation and disintegration in and among the member states (see also Kantola and Lombardo in this volume; Genschel and Jachtenfuchs 2018), particularly as not all EU member states are part of what is called the ‘Euro area’ (initially 11, today 19 of 27 EU member states).