Book Announcement: Political, Fiscal and Banking Union in The Eurozone? (Free E-Book from Wharton/FIC Press)

A new (and free) e-book, Political, Fiscal and Banking Union in The Eurozone?, is now available from the FIC Press, the publishing arm of the Financial Institutions Center at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.  The book, which built on a conference at EUI last spring, includes contributions from network members Mattias Kumm (NYU) and Peter Lindseth (UConn), along with those from leading economists, policymakers, journalists and lawyers.  The publisher’s blurb for the book is below and the full book may be downloaded here free-of-charge.

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The European University Institute (EUI) and the Wharton Financial Institutions Center (FIC, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) organised a conference entitled “Political, Fiscal and Banking Union in the Eurozone” at the EUI in Florence, Italy, on 25 April 2013. The event was financed by the PEGGED project (Politics, Economics and Global Governance: The European Dimension) and a Sloan Foundation grant to the FIC. The conference brought together leading economists, lawyers, political scientists and policy makers to assess the prospects and potential for, as well as obstacles to, the various forms and degrees of integration needed within the Eurozone in order to address the root causes of Europe’s current malaise. The aim was for open discussion and debate on the relationships between these different levels of union. Was one type of union achievable without the other? Or would the intractable difficulties of achieving each level of union spill over to lessen the chances of the other ever being a likely practical possibility?

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"What is Political Union?" (Alexander Somek) in the German Law Journal Special Issue: Regeneration Europe

The German Law Journal, edited by network members Russell Miller (W&L) and Peer Zumbansen (Osgoode), has put out a special issue on the topic "Regeneration Europe."  It includes a contribution by network member Alexander Somek (Iowa) entitled "What is Political Union?"  The abstract is below and the full article can be downloaded here.

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Recent proposals to fix Europe’s ailing monetary union have led some to endorse a stronger fiscal union. Such a fiscal union, which would supposedly comprise stronger budgetary supervision as well as a modicum of revenue collection by the Union itself, is taken to mark the step towards “political” union. The article explores the question of what, if anything, is understood by “political” in this context. After distinguishing three possible meanings of political union, the article argues that a true union of this kind would rest its focus on the form of life that can be sustained among Europeans. Surprisingly perhaps, the article concludes that less centralization and unwinding monetary union in its current form may well be more congenial to a political union than hectic bids for fiscal centralization.