Eurocrisis

The Euro and its Impact on the U.S. Economy The euro is the official currency of the following 12 European nations: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Luxembourg, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, and Finland. Although it has been the official currency since January 1,1999 it became physical tender which can be used by all participating countries on January 1,2002. The introduction of the euro into the world was truly a historic event; it represented a unity never before seen in the history of Europe, a common currency. After years of negotiations and much skepticism from around the globe, the implementation of the euro is no longer an abstract ideal, but a change that nations, corporations, and investors must

What the Euro experience has taught us is that even countries which are not vastly different from each other in terms of economic health, can face a phenomenal crisis within just 10 years of the creation of the single union. How then would you expect a global currency encompassing countries with vastly different structures, in vastly different stages of growth and using vastly different means of managing their economies to be stable?

As of 2012, only seventeen of members of the European Union have decided to use Euros as their currency. In order for the members that adopted the Euro as their currency to successfully help their economic problems, the Eurozone members had to follow strict instructions put into place the European Union. The strict policies included strict control over inflation, government debt, and long-term interest rates (Mckee 525). The union put these strict policies into place to give the union the tools that it needed to take in order to help fix the economic crisis in each country participating in the Eurozone. Without the full cooperation of each country, it could cause the plans to fix the economic crisis within each country to fail because of the different interests by each individual country.

The euro is not the currency of all EU Member States. Two countries (Denmark and the United Kingdom) have ‘opt-out’ sections in the Treaty excusing them from involvement, while the rest (numerous of the more recently agreed EU members plus Sweden) have yet to meet the situations for approving the single currency.

The EU sought to simplify trade within European neighbors and to replace national currencies with a single shared currency that could compete with the dollar on the global stage. The members of the newly-formed European Union agreed to a fixed currency conversion rate when the Euro was adopted (Scheller). Initially, the EU only had 11 members, but membership has since grown to 25 member nations. These 25 member countries operate within what is called the Eurozone, over which the European Central Bank sets economic policy

The euro (€) is the official currency of the Eurozone, which consists of 17 EU member states using this currency. The euro is also the 2nd largest reserve currency as well as the 2nd most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. As of November 2013, with more than €951 billion in circulation, the euro has the highest combined value of banknotes and coins in circulation in the world, having surpassed the U.S. dollar.

Before the crisis, in order to be a part of the Eurozone, countries had to have budget deficits less than 3% of their GDP, national debt less than 60% of their GDP, and inflation rates within 1.5-2% of the economy with the lowest inflation rate in the Eurozone. However, these were not strictly enforced, obviously, as Greece got away with it in extreme measures with no penalty. According to Michael W. Bauer and Stefan Becker, due to the crisis, “there have been crucial changes to all procedures that steer national economic and fiscal policies,” and, “it improves the stringency of EU economic policy-making, providing clear timelines and combining ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ measures” (219). In theory, this should significantly improve the system, as the crisis likely never would have happened if the Eurozone qualifications had been strictly enforced.

4) The path that led to adoption of the euro was set down in the:

As the EU includes 27 states therefore they would inevitably face difficulties due to the diverse range of national interests. On the other hand increasing numbers of policies are decided on a supranational level and therefore speed the process, for example decisions relating to trade or agriculture. However vital policies such as Defence remain intergovernmental, as do decisions such as the accession of new states. The effect of recent economic crisis has made an impact on the creation of EU superstate. The global downturn, which originated in 2007 created the ‘Eurozone’ crisis. As a result EU bailouts have been organized for Greece, Ireland and Portugal. The fear of the crisis extending further across Europe has caused a loss of confidence in the EU, and in particular the euro. There has even been speculation that Greece may have to exit the ‘Eurozone’. Alternatively it has also caused some to call for further integration, arguing the crisis has shown the need for tighter budget rules throughout the EU.

The Maastricht criteria for convergences is a criteria for which European Union member states are required to meet to enter the third stage of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and adopt the Euro as their currency (Viskovic, 2012). The criteria includes five rules which act as instruments of macroeconomic stabilisation (Bukowski, 2006), which were implemented to avoid destabilising the EMU by the premature admission of countries whose underlying economic performance was not yet compatible with permanently fixed exchange rates. These criteria have been used as conditions since the implementation of the euro in 1999, however, even before the recent euro crisis there has been speculation about the effectiveness of this criteria.

To explain a little more about the history of introducing the euro, throughout the 1960s on to the 1980s the EEC helped break down cultural barriers between European countries. This resulted in a “boom”, and people form the Western Countries became richer than ever

In 1999 seventeen countries in the European Union adopted the Euro forming a Euro Area. With the adoption of the Euro these seventeen countries discontinued their old currencies and monetary policies. Monetary Policies

In that stage, Union fixed the exchange rate, euro introduced as a single currency. European Monetary Institute replaced by establishment of European Central Bank.

Not all EU members wanted to join the Euro and not all were able to join. To participate in the Euro Area, member states had to meet a set of rigid criteria, including a budget deficit of less than

La Eurozona fue creada el 1º de enero de 1999, y es el conjunto de estados miembros de la Unión Europea que han adoptado el euro como moneda oficial (hasta ahora 16 Estados), formando así una unión monetaria. El mercado común es más amplio porque incluye a países que continuaron con sus monedas como Suiza y el Reino Unido por ejemplo. Por ahora son 16 los miembros que forman la eurozona: Alemania, Austria, Bélgica, Chipre, Eslovaquia, Eslovenia, España, Finlandia, Francia, Grecia, Irlanda, Italia, Luxemburgo, Malta, Países Bajos y Portugal. Es importante entender entonces que estamos hablando de 16 países que tienen una misma moneda (el Euro), y que, por lo tanto, no pueden realizar individualmente