The European Central Bank (ECB) is the prime component of the Eurosystem and the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as well as one of seven institutions of the European Union. It is one of the world's most important central banks.
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 European Union is a geo-political entity covering a large portion of the European continent. It is founded upon numerous treaties and has undergone expansions and secessions that have taken it from 6 member states to 27, a majority of the states in Europe.
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 will be obliged to adopt the euro in the future.
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.
The economy of Europe comprises about 748 million people in 50 countries. The formation of the European Union (EU) and in 1999, the introduction of a unified currency, the Euro, brings participating European countries closer through the convenience of a shared currency and has led to a stronger European cash flow. It is important to know the European Union is not a country, it’s a global unique organisation, the entity with the biggest economy in the world. The European Union also “regulates” the global market by the Single Market. The difference in wealth across Europe can be seen roughly in former Cold War divide, with some countries breaching the divide. Whilst most European states have a GDP per capita higher than the world's average and are very highly developed, some European economies, despite their position over the world's average in the Human Development Index, are poorer. Europe has total banking assets of more than $50 trillion and its Global assets under management has more than $20 trillion.
Brendan Peter Simms is a Professor of the history of international relations in the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge.
The economy of the European Union is the joint economy of the member states of the European Union (EU). It is the third largest economy in the world in nominal terms, after the United States and China, and the third one in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, after China and the United States. The European Union's GDP was estimated to be around $15 trillion (nominal) in 2020, representing around 1/6 of the global economy.
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.
Romania's current national currency is the leu. However, being bound by its EU accession agreement, Romania has to replace the leu with the euro, as soon as Romania will fulfil all of the four nominal euro convergence criteria as stated in the Treaty of Functioning the European Union in article 140. As of 2022, the only currency on the market is leu, euro is not yet used in shops. The Romanian leu is not part of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, although the Romanian authorities are working to prepare the changeover to the euro. In order to achieve the change of the currency, Romania is required to undergo at least two years of stability within the limits of the convergence criteria. The current Romanian Government in addition established a self-imposed criterion to reach a certain level of real convergence, as a steering anchor to decide the appropriate target year for ERM II membership and euro adoption. As of March 2018, the scheduled date for euro adoption in Romania was 2024, according to the National Plan to Changeover to the Euro. Nevertheless, in early 2021, this date was delayed again to 2027 or 2028, and once again to 2029 in late 2021.
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.
The enlargement of the eurozone is an ongoing process within the European Union (EU). All member states of the European Union, except Denmark which negotiated an opt-out from the provisions, are obliged to adopt the euro as their sole currency once they meet the criteria, which include: complying with the debt and deficit criteria outlined by the Stability and Growth Pact, keeping inflation and long-term governmental interest rates below certain reference values, stabilising their currency's exchange rate versus the euro by participating in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and ensuring that their national laws comply with the ECB statute, ESCB statute and articles 130+131 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The obligation for EU member states to adopt the euro was first outlined by article 109.1j of the Maastricht Treaty of 1992, which became binding on all new member states by the terms of their treaties of accession.
Eurobonds or stability bonds were proposed government bonds to be issued in euros jointly by the European Union's 19 eurozone states. The idea was first raised by the Barroso European Commission in 2011 during the 2009–2012 European sovereign debt crisis. Eurobonds would be debt investments whereby an investor loans a certain amount of money, for a certain amount of time, with a certain interest rate, to the eurozone bloc altogether, which then forwards the money to individual governments. The proposal was floated again in 2020 as a potential response to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, leading such debt issue to be dubbed "corona bonds".
The Eurogroup is the recognised collective term for informal meetings of the finance ministers of the eurozone—those member states of the European Union (EU) which have adopted the euro as their official currency. The group has 19 members. It exercises political control over the currency and related aspects of the EU's monetary union such as the Stability and Growth Pact. The current President of the Eurogroup is Paschal Donohoe, the Minister for Finance of Ireland.
The European debt crisis, often also referred to as the eurozone crisis or the European sovereign debt crisis, is a multi-year debt crisis that has been taking place in the European Union (EU) since the end of 2009. Several eurozone member states were unable to repay or refinance their government debt or to bail out over-indebted banks under their national supervision without the assistance of third parties like other eurozone countries, the European Central Bank (ECB), or the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
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. Under 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.
The European troika is a term used, especially in the media, to refer to the decision group formed by the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The usage arose during the European debt crisis in the context of the "bailouts" of Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Portugal necessitated by their prospective insolvency caused by the world financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Withdrawal from the Eurozone denotes the process whereby a Eurozone member-state, whether voluntarily or forcibly, stops using the euro as its national currency and leaves the Eurozone. As of September 2021, no country has withdrawn from the Eurozone.
