De politieke economie van macro-economische onbalansen in de eurozone

The introduction of the euro led to large macroeconomic imbalances between Euro countries. Under pressure from the euro crisis, the European Commission adopted EU regulations 1174/2011 and 1176/2011 in 2011 with the aim of reducing these macroeconomic imbalances. These measures include the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure to identify macroeconomic imbalances and, if necessary, to prompt Member States to take corrective action. This article provides an overview of this recent EU policy for countering imbalances and provides a political-economic analysis of the macroeconomic imbalances in Europe and its consequences. In particular, it focuses on the conflicting interests of the euro-area countries with current account surpluses and deficits. This article also analyses the possibilities offered by the 2019 European election for European policy makers to strengthen this policy. The article concludes that the surplus countries, despite the apparent advantage of trade balance surpluses, do have an interest in reducing imbalances in the EU but fail to translate this into actual policy. The Commission’s role in reducing imbalances is likely to remain limited, even after the 2019 European elections.