The Euro and the Single Market

This chapter argues that markets are cultural sites, nowhere more so than with the euro and the single market project. After briefly outlining their historical development, the various symbols and practices intrinsic to these projects are highlighted. The chapter describes how, aside from their important material effects, the euro and the single market create an “imaginary Europe” for citizens through social processes of labeling, mapping, and narrating, for example with the iconography of the euro or the creation of the “SE” or Societas Europaea category for European firms. As with the historical experience of nation-states, these processes work to legitimate a significant transfer of sovereignty, although they do so using strategies of localizing and deracinating Europe in an attempt to make the EU’s market activities seem less politically contestable.