The Future of the European Union

The European Union (EU) currently comprised of 28 countries is heralded as the single most ambitious voluntary supra-national economic, trade and monetary arrangement in recent modern history. The initial impetus of this arrangement began in 1951 with The Coal and Steel Union amongst Germany, France, Belgium, Luxemburg, Netherlands, and Italy and it continues to evolve today. The most ambitious part of this arrangement is the economic and monetary union (EMU) of 19 EU members countries called the Eurozone. This grand experiment has recently faced its biggest stress test with a double dip recession – the 2008 global financial crisis and the 2010+ European sovereign debt crisis. While many experts focused on the lack of fiscal union to resolve the Eurozone’s current problems, the issues are more complex. Systemic risk in Eurozone originates in part from three principal areas: political issues, lack of a fiscal discipline enforcement mechanism, and market failure.