‘The euro is like a bumblebee. This is a mystery of nature because it shouldn’t fly but instead it does. So the euro was a bumblebee that flew very well for several years. And now – and I think people ask “how come?” – probably there was something in the atmosphere, in the air, that made the bumblebee fly. Now something must have changed in the air, and we know what, after the financial crisis. The bumblebee would have to graduate to a real bee. And that’s what it’s doing’ – Mario Draghi, 26 July 2012.
Abstract
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has evolved since its inception, but its modifications have arguably been “minor”. This paper asks whether experts believe that EMU is sustainable and, if not, what changes to the EMU architecture might make it sustainable. We draw on an expert survey that circulated between April-August 2021. We surveyed 348 experts with expertise on macroeconomic policy, public finance and European economic integration, namely academics, civil servants, and researchers at research institutes and think tanks. The selected experts are based in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal – i.e. two northern and two southern member states. A large majority of these experts believe that EMU has benefitted the euro area but also that EMU is not sustainable in its current form. A majority agrees that each of three potential changes would make EMU sustainable, namely (i) establishing stronger mechanisms to enforce structural reforms in member states, (ii) introducing “more automatic stabilizers” at the EU level, and (iii) a “fiscal union”. Ordered probit regressions reveal that factors such as nationality and political orientation explain some of the variation in expert responses. Yet overall, there is expert consensus on the need for deeper integration to make the euro sustainable. Key words: economic governance, Economic and Monetary Union, elite survey, experts, fiscal union, ideas, knowledge, northern and southern EU countries, political orientation.
