The Hidden Alternative

Was the launch of the euro an expensive and dangerous mistake for the peoples of Europe? If so, who was to blame? And what are the escape routes — either in the form of bold reform or of break-up? These questions — and the responses — form the substance of the present volume. Only the last question — and the attempt to answer it by drafting detailed scenarios in which present member countries could exit from monetary union — is new. The potential costs and benefits and the motives or competence of the policy-makers had been extensively debated in the roughly three decades up until the realization of European Monetary Union (EMU) in 1999.