European Financial Crisis

This Thesis Paper asks the crucial question of whether the European Financial Integration is possible or not during the Economic Crisis. In order for the current situation of the economic and the political dispute across Europe to be understood, one shall closely examine the history and evolution of the Union, as well as the progress of the establishment of institutions concerning the financial policies. Thus, a close and detailed analysis of the evolution of the EU throughout history is considered notable for our question to be answered.

In this book, legal scholars from the EU Member States (with the addition of the UK) analyse the development of the EU Member States' attitudes to economic, fiscal, and monetary integration since the Treaty of Maastricht.
The Eurozone crisis corroborated the warnings of economists that weak economic policy coordination and loose fiscal oversight would be insufficient to stabilise the monetary union. The country studies in this book investigate the legal, and in particular the constitutional, pre-conditions for deeper fiscal and monetary integration that influenced the past and might impact on the future positions in the (now) 27 EU Member States.
The individual country studies address the following issues:
- Main characteristics of the national constitutional system, and constitutional culture;
- Constitutional foundations of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) membership and related instruments;
- Constitutional obstacles to EMU integration;
- Constitutional rules and/or practice on implementing EMU-related law; and
- The resulting relationship between EMU-related law and national law
Offering a comprehensive and detailed assessment of the legal and constitutional developments concerning the Economic and Monetary Union since the Treaty of Maastricht, this book provides not only a study of legal EMU-related measures and reforms at the EU level, but most importantly sheds light on their perception in the EU Member States.

(Economic imbalances have always been a core feature of the European Union. The problem of North-South (or “core” and “periphery”) division, despite the efforts of the European Union, is still relevant for the EU. Current imbalances that exist now are not the result of the current economic and financial crisis, but have been rooted before the formation of the European Union.  Historically, southern states were less developed than their richer neighbors of the North. Within the EU, “core” states are represented by Germany, France, the UK, Benelux countries and Scandinavian states. The “periphery” includes Spain, Greece, Italy and Portugal. However, in this article we will analyze the existing imbalances on the example of just three states: Germany, representing the “core” and Greece and Spain, representing “periphery”. The reason for the choice of these countries was quite simple, Spain and Greece have been particularly struck by the current crisis and are suffering most from its consequences, while Germany being the biggest economy in the Union, appears to be the main rescuer for the troubled states. In comparing the North and South economies of the European Union (Germany, Spain and Greece), we can see the economic structural differences through long run economic theory, we can that the crisis has merely exposed these economic imbalances and future reforms should be launched in order to make the European Union stable. Although there are many imbalances between the North and South economies, the European Union has managed to tie these economies together and reduce the gap between them. )

Since the outbreak of the financial crisis the European Union (EU) has been engaged in an ambitious wide-ranging legislative programme intended to reform European financial regulation. This paper aims to critically review the accomplishments, failures and future challenges of the European financial reform programme. While acknowledging that during the past three years significant progress has been made and a number of regulatory and institutional changes have been agreed, and in some cases already implemented, it is argued that overall, the reform has not lived up to the original expectations. Financial industry pressure, international competition considerations, and the ambivalent attitude of European governments towards the transfer of regulatory and supervisory authority to the European level, have slowed down progress and undermined the effectiveness of the agreed reforms. This is worrisome because, as the paper argues the stability of an increasingly integrating European financial marketplace requires the establishment of an integrated European regulatory and supervisory framework.