Euro and EU

Wed, 06 May 1998 15:25:44 -0700
Bertil Haggman (bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se)

Daniel M Green wrote:
>
> Resolved: The Euro will mark a watershed in the eclipse of the American
> economy, reducing the USA to the status of just another large economy and
> causing a major political crisis in this country within the next 4-5
> years.

Interesting prognosis but although
the euro might be a serious competitor
the old US dollar will probably stand its
ground far longer than 4-5 years.

The problem of the euro and EU is of course
the tremendous task of the European Union
to contribute to the rebuilding of the
economies of Eastern Europe so badly
affected by the marxist-leninist regimes.
The question is if a Marshall plan would
not be necessary. One only has to take
a look at the former GDR to see what
enormous problems Bonn (soon) Berlin
has had with the new Bundeslaender
in the east. And especially Bulgaria,
Romania have no non-communist own
government to help like in the German
case.

The euro was off to a rather bad start
with the two conflicting concepts of the
role of the European Central Bank. Only time
can tell what will happen to the euro. Meanwhile
enlargement, the conflict between Turkey and
Greece and the Balkan powder keg will continue
to threaten EU and the EMU project.

An often forgotten aspect of the European
Union is the ongoing regionalization that
in the long perspective makes the transnational
region a serious contender of the national state.
The ongoing project Organizing European Space
is only one of the European projects attempting
to study what could be expressed as: There is
indeed a rise of the regional in lockstep with the
rise of the global. The British economist
Alfred Marshall speaks of regions with an "industrial
atmosphere" (Industry is in the air). National states
are actually not very well suited for study of
how economies function. The regional difference
within countries is bigger than that between
"industrial regions" in different European states.

The euro and EU is standing for an archipelago
of regions and cities in Europe connected with the networks
of a new era: those of knowledge and capital. The
influence of the national states is receding.

Bertil Haggman
Author
Member, Swedish Authors Union
bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se