The euro is the official currency of 19 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 343 million citizens as of 2019. The euro, which is divided into 100 cents, is the second-largest and second-most traded currency in the international markets for the related different types of transactions after the United States dollar.
The Treaty on European Union, commonly known as the Maastricht Treaty, is the foundation treaty of the European Union (EU). Concluded in 1992 between the then-twelve member states of the European Communities, it announced "a new stage in the process of European integration" chiefly in provisions for a shared European citizenship, for the eventual introduction of a single currency, and for common foreign and security policies. Although these were widely seen to presage a "federal Europe", the focus of constitutional debate shifted to the later 2007 Treaty of Lisbon. In the wake of the Eurozone debt crisis unfolding from 2009, the most enduring reference to the Maastricht Treaty has been to the rules of compliance – the "Maastricht criteria" – for the currency union.
The eurozone, officially called the euro area, is a monetary union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU) that have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender. The monetary authority of the eurozone is the Eurosystem. Eight members of the European Union continue to use their own national currencies, although most of them have agreed to adopt the euro in the future.
A trade agreement is a wide-ranging taxes, tariff and trade treaty that often includes investment guarantees. It exists when two or more countries agree on terms that help them trade with each other. The most common trade agreements are of the preferential and free trade types, which are concluded in order to reduce tariffs, quotas and other trade restrictions on items traded between the signatories.
The European System of Central Banks (ESCB) consists of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the national central banks (NCBs) of all 27 member states of the European Union (EU).
European integration is the process of industrial, economic, political, legal, social and cultural integration of states wholly or partially in Europe or nearby. European integration has primarily come about through the European Union and its policies.
A currency union is an intergovernmental agreement that involves two or more states sharing the same currency. These states may not necessarily have any further integration.
In economics, an optimum currency area (OCA) or optimal currency region (OCR) is a geographical region in which it would maximize economic efficiency to have the entire region share a single currency.
The euro came into existence on 1 January 1999, although it had been a goal of the European Union (EU) and its predecessors since the 1960s. After tough negotiations, the Maastricht Treaty entered into force in 1993 with the goal of creating an economic and monetary union by 1999 for all EU states except the UK and Denmark.
Denmark uses the krone as its currency and does not use the euro, having negotiated the right to opt out from participation under the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. In 2000, the government held a referendum on introducing the euro, which was defeated with 46.8% voting yes and 53.2% voting no. The Danish krone is part of the ERM II mechanism, so its exchange rate is tied to within 2.25% of the euro.
Montenegro is a country in South-Eastern Europe, which is not a member of the European Union, Eurozone nor does it have a formal monetary agreement with the EU, but it is one of the two territories that has unilaterally adopted the euro in 2002 as its de facto domestic currency. This means that the euro is not a legal tender there, however it is treated as such by the government and the population.
The Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) is one of the oldest configurations of the Council of the European Union and is composed of the economics and finance ministers of the 27 European Union member states, as well as Budget Ministers when budgetary issues are discussed.
An economic union is a type of trade bloc which is composed of a common market with a customs union. The participant countries have both common policies on product regulation, freedom of movement of goods, services and the factors of production and a common external trade policy. When an economic union involves unifying currency it becomes an economic and monetary union.
Lúcio Vinhas de Souza is a Brazilian-Portuguese economist. His main research areas are global macroeconomics, development economics, finance and country risk, with extensive work experience at the developed economies of the European Union and the US, and in several emerging market regions, from the former Soviet Union to East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is an umbrella term for the group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages. The policies cover the 19 eurozone states, as well as non-euro European Union states.
Fiscal union is the integration of the fiscal policy of nations or states. In a fiscal union, decisions about the collection and expenditure of taxes are taken by common institutions, shared by the participating governments. A fiscal union does not imply the centralisation of spending and tax decisions at the supranational level. Centralisation of these decisions would open up not only the possibility of inherent risk sharing through the supranational tax and transfer system but also economic stabilisation through debt management at the supranational level. Proper management would reduce the effects of asymmetric shocks that would be shared both with other countries and with future generations. Fiscal union also implies that the debt would be financed not by individual countries but by a common bond.
A customs and monetary union is a type of trade bloc which is composed of a customs union and a currency union. The participant countries have both common external trade policy and share a single currency.
The European Monetary Agreement (EMA) was an economic arrangement signed by 17 European countries in Paris on the 5th of August 1955. It replaced the European Payments Union which ended in 1958. The EMA was administered by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The OECD did this to achieve economic integration by coordinating the exchange rates of the 17 member countries. This allowed the countries to directly convert their currencies and integrate their balance of payments accounts, which promoted free trade. Due to advanced facilities offered by the International Monetary Fund, the EMA was ended in 1972. The European Economic Community oversaw the EMA aiming to achieve a greater level of economic integration within Europe. The European Economic Community was the legal successor at the time, however it has advanced and is now referred to as the European Union.
The EU economic governance, Sixpack describes a set of European legislative measures to reform the Stability and Growth Pact and introduces greater macroeconomic surveillance, in response to the European debt crisis of 2009. These measures were bundled into a "six pack" of regulations, introduced in September 2010 in two versions respectively by the European Commission and a European Council task force. In March 2011, the ECOFIN council reached a preliminary agreement for the content of the Sixpack with the commission, and negotiations for endorsement by the European Parliament then started. Ultimately it entered into force 13 December 2011, after one year of preceding negotiations. The six regulations aim at strengthening the procedures to reduce public deficits and address macroeconomic imbalances.
