Enlarging the Euro Area: External Empowerment and Domestic Transformation in East Central Europe

Abstract: This book seeks to offer the first in-depth and systematic analysis of the challenges of the Euro Area and the eastward enlargement of the European Union. It focuses in particular on how the prolonged process of accession to the Euro Area is affecting domestic economic policies in the accession states of east central Europe.

It contributes to Europeanization studies, comparative political economy and to studies of Economic and Monetary Union. It also provides a picture of processes of domestic transformation in such countries as the three Baltic States, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

The book brings together a range of recognized experts from across Europe and combines country and sectoral case studies with a thematic treatment. It begins by offering an 'outside-in' perspective, which situates the effects of EMU on the accession states in the wider context of the development of global economic norms. The second part focuses on an 'inside-out' analysis of how Euro Area accession affects the states of east central Europe - their policies, politics and public institutions. The final part assesses how Euro Area accession is affecting key policy sectors in east central Europe: financial market regulation, fiscal policies and welfare states and labour markets.

Contents:
Euro Entry as Defining and Negotiating Fit: Conditionality, Contagion and Domestic Politics - Kenneth Dyson
EMU and the New Member States: Strategic Choices in the Context of Global Norms - Jim Rollo
Real Convergence and EMU Enlargement: The Time Dimension of Fit with the Euro Area - Iain Begg
Economic Adjustment and the Euro in the New Member States: The Structural Dimension of Fit - Erik Jones
Optimal Economic Governance in an Enlarged European Union: Scenarios and Options - Ingo Linsenmann and Wolfgang Wessels
The Baltic States: Using Pace-Setting on EMU Accession to Consolidate Domestic Stability Culture - Magnus Feldmann
From Laggard to Pace-Setter: Bulgaria's Road to EMU - Vesselin Dimitrov
From Pace-Setter to Laggard: The Political Economy of Negotiating Fit in the Czech Republic - Frank Bönker
The First Shall Be the Last? Hungary's Road to EMU - Bela Greskovits
Poland: Unbalanced Domestic Leadership in Negotiating Fit - Radoslaw Zubeck
Persistent Laggard: Romania as Eastern Europe's Sisyphus - Dimitris Papadimitriou
Financial Market Governance: Evolution and Convergence - Piroska Nagy
EMU and Fiscal Policy - Vesselin Dimitrov
EMU and Welfare State Adjustment in Central and Eastern Europe - Martin Rhodes and Maarten Keune
Domestic Transformation, Strategic Options and 'Soft' Power in Euro Area Accession - Kenneth Dyson