Economic and Monetary Union

The pandemic has created an unprecedented level of uncertainty, mainly because we do not know how long it will last. This affects the economic implications. Two facts are clear: there will be a recession and budget deficits will have to soar. This note draws some implications beyond the immediate health concerns. In many ways, they challenge the architecture of the Eurozone. Either the architecture will change or the Eurozone as we know it will cease to exist. During the sovereign debt crisis from 2010 to 2015, the architecture was changed just as the Eurozone was on the verge of losing one or more members, with unmeasurable consequences. Will history repeat itself?

The ECRI Statistical Package 2019 provides data on outstanding credit granted by monetary-financial institutions (MFIs) to households and non-financial corporations (NFCs) for the period from 1995 to 2018. Credit volumes and annual growth rates are broken down by sector and credit type to enable detailed insights into credit market developments over time and across countries. It comprises 45 countries including the EU Member States, EU candidate and EFTA countries as well as the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Russia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia. 2018, loans to EU households and non-financial corporations(NFC) increased by 2.7%, the second consecutive year of the expansion.For the fourth year in a row, total loans in New Member States (NMS) grew faster than in old Member States (EU-15). Compared to the previous year, the total loans growth rate in 2018 accelerated from 2.2% to 2.7% in EU-15, while it slowed from 5.9% to 3.5% in NMS. Between 2017 and 2018, household loans increased by 2.8% and non-financial corporations (NFC) loans increased by2.6%. Total household loans grew most in in Slovakia (+11%), Romania (+9%) and Lithuania (+8%), while the largest contractions were registered in Cyprus (-31%), Greece (-7%) and Latvia (-5%). Finland (+19%), Hungary (+19%) and Luxembourg (+11%) were amongst the Member States with the largest growth rates in NFC loans. In turn, significant reductions were registered inalia, Russia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia.

More than a decade on from the Global Financial Crisis, while debt-to-GDP ratios are back around pre-crisis levels in some countries, debt burdens have continued to climb in others, exceeding 100% of GDP in some cases. The challenges sovereign debt managers are confronting in an environment of high debt burdens and relatively tighter financial conditions have been compounded by recent political uncertainties. OECD governments will also need to refinance around 40% of their outstanding marketable debt over the next three years. This means that most countries are focused on mitigating refinancing risk, maintaining flexibility in funding programmes, and broadening the investor base. In countries where financing requirements are limited and declining, sovereign debt managers face a “positive” set of challenges. For example, the minimal optimal size of outstanding sovereign debt required to maintain a vibrant government bond market and facilitate the implementation of monetary policy is currently under discussion in a few countries.

Under a monetary union, fiscal and monetary discipline have to go hand in hand if macroeconomic stability is to be maintained. The question is how to set up the right institutions to achieve this stability in a credible manner. This policy brief proposes a new institutional arrangement for the euro area to restore fiscal discipline. It places the responsibility for compliance entirely on the shoulders of the member states. It also provides for the mutualisation of 30% of the member states’ debt-to-GDP ratio.
This would help to maintain a stable currency and to limit the risk of contagion should another crisis occur in the future. However, this comes at a cost. Under the fiscal scheme proposed, member states, which would be fully fiscally sovereign, would need to run long-term sound fiscal policies to benefit from euro membership.
In addition, this brief proposes a reform of Target2 under which overspending economies would have to pay the financial cost of accessing extra euros, which would deter the accumulation of internal imbalances within the euro area. All this is expected to change the current fragility of the architecture of the euro, provide member states with the right incentives to abide by sounder economic principles and make them fully responsible for the policies they adopt.

The paper makes an analytical contribution to the revived discussion about the euro area’s institutional setup. After significant progress during the eurocrisis, the drive to complete Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) had stalled, and the way forward will benefit from an in-depth look at the conceptual issues raised by the evolution and architecture of Europe, and the trade-offs involved. A thorough look at the underlying economic issues suggests that in the long run, EMU will benefit from progressing along three mutually supporting tracks: introduce more fiscal risk sharing, helping to make the sovereign “no bailout” rule credible; complementary financial sector reforms to delink sovereigns and banks; and more effective rules to discourage moral hazard. This evolution would ensure that financial markets provide incentives for fiscal discipline. Introducing more fiscal union comes with myriad legal, technical, operational, and political problems, raising questions well beyond the remit of economics. But without decisive progress to foster fiscal risk sharing, EMU will continue to face existential risks.

This paper describes the current and future economic situation in Europe: While Europe has enjoyed a strong recovery, medium-term perspectives are less exciting, hence the necessity for European government to use this window of opportunity to improve their fiscal policy and implement reforms aimed at transforming the short-term recovery into a long-term one. The recovery is also a great occasion for European Countries to strengthen their economic and monetary ties, and therefore deepen the Economic and Monetary Union.

While a new Bretton Woods-style agreement is highly unlikely, the US and Europe should help update the existing monetary system with a new set of best practices and norms.
Many of the seemingly ‘established’ norms of monetary policy are in fact quite recent, having emerged since the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s. These norms include inflation targeting, central bank independence from political authority, and the separation of monetary policy from regulatory activity such as bank supervision. Central bank orthodoxy has also, until recently, largely ignored the international ‘spillover’ effects of monetary policy.
The 2008–09 financial crisis and its aftermath changed the picture. Monetary policy was recruited to assist governments in stabilizing financial markets and restoring liquidity. And conventional assumptions about the primacy of central banks’ responsibility for price stability were challenged as quantitative easing (QE) proved less inflationary than feared. Indeed, eight years after the crisis, the inflation rate – the most significant driver of monetary policy under the old regime – remains consistently low in most major economies.
In this context, the United States faces some unique challenges. The dollar’s status as the global reserve currency means that the US Federal Reserve’s decisions often have international ramifications. Emerging markets are becoming more exposed to spillovers from US policy, as globalization renders their economies and financial systems more interdependent and as finance becomes increasingly important relative to other economic activity.
In Europe, the euro’s problems reflect similar shortcomings to those that undermined the 1944 Bretton Woods system. Launched in 1999, the euro was in effect an attempt to maintain fixed exchange rates between member states. However, the single currency’s designers underestimated the difficulty of maintaining such a system across multiple national economies, each with different growth profiles and fiscal policies. The euro’s structural problems have been exacerbated by the secular shift from a world of politically ‘subservient’ central banks, as existed before the creation of the European Central Bank (ECB), to the current system in which the ECB is highly independent.
Despite the current strains on the monetary system, consensus on a formalized new international framework in the mould of Bretton Woods is unlikely. A more plausible outcome is the organic development of a new set of norms articulating principles both for the mechanisms by which central banks pursue price stability and for the governance of central banks themselves. The United States and Europe are likely to be at the forefront of this process. They should proactively shape the new norms to ensure that they meet the challenges of today’s evolving economic landscape.

The new EU leadership – the president of the European Commission and his team of commissioners, and the presidents of the European Council and of the European Parliament – will have to address pressing challenges. Despite the significant steps taken by Europe – among them the creation of a European Stability Mechanism, the start of a banking union, the strengthening of fiscal rules and substantial structural reforms in crisis countries – results for citizens are still unsatisfactory. It is impossible to summarise all the memos in this volume but a common theme is the need to focus on pro-growth policies, on a deepening of the single market, on better and more global trade integration. Reverting to national protectionism, more state aid for national or European champions – as frequently argued for by national politicians – will not be the right way out of the crisis. On the contrary, more Europe and deeper economic integration in some crucial areas, such as energy, capital markets and the digital economy, would greatly support the feeble recovery. But in other areas, less Europe would also be a highly welcome signal that the new European leadership is serious about subsidiarity. Internal re-organisation of the European Commission to ensure that it better delivers would also be welcome.

The survival and success of the European Union depend on the vitality of the Eurozone. The priority is therefore to give the Eurozone a clear perspective for the coming 10 to 15 years and gradually to transform it into a truly integrated area. This approach must embrace the commitments necessary to implement sound and convergent economic policies, a determination to embrace practical instruments of solidarity and the adoption of meaningful rules of governance. These are the keys to new economic growth and higher levels of employment.
The 28-member state European Union has too to find the path of rigour and efficiency. We should agree on a few essential political goals. These goals are already there in the treaties: their concrete implementation now has to be agreed and accepted by all Member States. Energy and the environment, the internal market, defence, and the necessary conditions for the free movement of individuals, are the key policies.

There has never been so much uncertainty concerning the future of European integration. Its difficulties in creating a shared prosperity and a socially progressive outlook, in generating incontestable added value against global competition and in fostering an ambition espoused by its citizens have depleated the energy of Europe. The Eurozone crisis and the divergence between countries have heightened the perception of Europe as an incomplete institutional framework that has failed to make its intentions clear in order to attain its objectives, and in which the decision-making process is too far removed from citizens. Nevertheless, the value of the Union remains, whether in terms of making its 500 million-strong consumer market a lever for growth and influence or of upholding the values of peace, democracy and economic and social progress. In order for France to play a dynamic role in the European project and its ideal of shared prosperity, its ambitions must be made clear. Can the single market be reformulated? Within the eurozone, can there be parallel progress in budgetary responsibility and solidarity? Can risks and sovereignty be shared? Is political union desirable and on what basis? How should the debate on European borders be framed? To what lengths are we prepared to go for the stability and prosperity of our neighbours? In sum, what are the economic and political conditions required in order for France successfully to pursue an ambitious strategy of European renewal? These are some of the questions that we are required to address at this time.