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The Pros And Cons Of The Eurozone

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The Eurozone is a powerful entity in European politics which controls the monetary policy of nineteen countries within the European Union. It was first created in 1999 as an enactment of the single currency goal laid out in the Maastricht Treaty. Since its inception- and particularly exacerbated by the Eurozone crisis- there has been considerable talk of extending its capabilities to that of a political and fiscal union by turning it into a federal polity; though further Eurozone integration is a strong possibility in the future, in its current form further integration would result in disaster. The negative effects of integration would outweigh the possible benefits, with detriments such as undependable fiscal responses to economic downturn, …show more content…

It simply is not in the best interest of both the countries involved, and the citizens thereof to integrate further at this time. It is debatable whether more complete integration would fix the problems integrationists claim it will, and it is important to note that the Eurozone has already shown an inability to handle the responsibilities already place upon it. The creation of a federal polity would also gimp the decision-making powers of the European parliament by removing the relative national impartiality that it currently benefits from; the parliament would also suffer from a related yet different problem of pitting the Eurozone members against the non-member states on sensitive issues by creating unified voting blocs on certain fiscal and political related issues. Finally, and most importantly, it would not be supported by the citizens and countries that make it up. It is easy to paint a wholistic picture of benefits, but on an individual level it is hard to get groups on board with it, and already significant backlash has been had about previous integration. Integration for integration’s sake is not real progress, and the Eurozone needs to commit to only moving as fast as the people will let it; pushing to far and too fast will only breed negativity and contempt, and will actually hurt the Eurozone’s position and standing in the long run. A fiscal and political union is not an impossibility at some indeterminate point in the future, but it is at this time in the European Union and Eurozones’

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