Employment in the European Monetary Union

This book discusses the issue of employment in the European Monetary Union (EMU). This issue is a central topic for this Institution, whose discussion involves referring not only to its articulation, but also to the policies implemented by member countries and the central bodies of the Institution.The effects of these policies added to those of the institutions per se, lead to the asymmetries and the imbalances that arise in a currency area lacking many policy instruments typical of a country. The central issue is that the EMU institutions were based on theoretical roots, those prevailing in the Seventies, predicating the virtues of the market, and tight monetary policy for ensuring monetary stability and full employment that are now outdated. To these theoretical roots the practical interests of the countries and the politicians prevailing at the time of its constitution must be added. The ideas at the root of the European institution have now been largely abandoned and new lines of intervention at the level both of each country and the central level have to be searched for. There is in fact the need to rediscover economic policy for the European institution.