European Union at the monetary turning-point: towards genuine integration or dis-integration? (General Introduction: The powers of the Union in the European economic governance: new transfers of sovereignty)

European integration is facing one of the most difficult, but at the same time, challenging periods of its life. The European crisis is not yet overcome; and the new Asian crisis is approaching. Only a strongly integrated Europe may resist and even make profit from such challenges. Only if linked together will European countries be able to remain in the G8 group after 2050. The aim of the report is to point out and to stimulate the debate only on those issues that are more strictly related to the “monetary governance” of the European Union. In order to better understand the path to the European monetary integration, the report first quickly examines the process that led to the construction of a common currency in the European Union, i.e. the path to the European Monetary Union (EMU) and to the establishment of the European Central Bank (ECB). Then, it illustrates some of the most important issues concerning EMU and ECB, especially as concerns the costs and benefits of a monetary union; the problem of the “unaccountability” of the ECB; the overregulation aimed at achieving economic and fiscal coordination; the consequences on citizens’ rights and safeguards. Finally, in order to discuss the problem of whether a political union is advisable or even necessary, the European experience is compared with the origins of central banking of two “integrating” countries (i.e. the institution of the federal central bank system in the United States and the institution of the central bank in Italy after its unification).