Money, power and states: the political regime of the European currency.

Summary This thesis proposes to analyze the political regime of the European currency. This concept refers to the manifestations of power within the currency in three modalities, namely (i) the construction of the rules of issuance, circulation and distribution, (ii) the realization of fiscal and economic policies and (iii) the crisis. We will use the case of Canadian monetary unification (1841-1867) to highlight the key characteristics of European monetary unification and to judge the relevance of our concept. The intergovernmental negotiations from 1989 to 1992 correspond to a point in time that highlights the power logics between the French and German executives. These logics determined the mobility of goods, services, people and capital (internal and external), the exchange rate regime (internal and external), the objectives and missions of the central bank, the existence or not of a central state, its methods of indebtedness and the presence of fiscal transfers, which were stabilized in a socio-political compromise. This has resulted in a fiscal policy framework that, through its interaction with the above characteristics, obliges member states to implement specific economic policies. Competitive disinflation and pro-cyclical policies question the reproduction of the economic order, that is, the accumulation of capital that allows for the recognition of debts issued in the previous period. This unsustainability of the political regime of the European currency has provoked a crisis, which will be resolved according to the institutional context established in the socio-political compromise. Due to the absence of a European state, it is impossible to modify the characteristics of this compromise, compromising this political regime of the currency.