"Negotiating the European economic and monetary union"

Hosli, Madeleine O. (2001) "Negotiating the European economic and monetary union" . In European Union Studies Association (EUSA) > Biennial Conference > 2001 (7th), May 31-June 2, 2001, pages 42, Madison, Wisconsin.

Abstract

The European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) began on January 1, 1999. The European Central Bank has been set up in Frankfurt, Germany, and the Euro created. Looking at the intergovernmental negotiations that led to the establishment of the EMU, it is not initially clear, however, which European Union governments actually supported the EMU (and the specificities of its structure, as contained in the Treaty on European Union and its Protocols). With an analysis of a small data set on government preferences as regards the EMU, this paper sheds some light onto the negotiation dynamics. Essentially, the paper finds that the German government, through the negotiations surrounding the EMU, obtained an outcome fairly close to its initial policy preferences. Similarly, bargaining outcomes are found to be close to the references of Italy and of some middle-sized members of the EU. France and the UK were not as successful and had to concede on a number of points, and Denmark's original preferences were quite a distance from the final EMU provisions. These results are explained on the basis of spatial representations and two-level game dynamics.