Whither the Euro? History and Crisis of Europe's Single-Currency Project.

Summary In this contribution we trace that recurrent pattern of financial crisis and institutional reform shaping the European integration project through its key chapters to arrive at the sovereign-debt crisis of the euro-zone which has already seen huge bail-out packages for three countries (Greece, Ireland, Portugal) as well as the introduction of several new crisis-management mechanisms. By taking a historical approach we can identify the structural flaws besetting the single-currency project from its inception and illustrate how they morphed into the different facets of a systemic crisis in the face of an asymmetric shock from the US-centered “subprime” crisis in 2007/08.