Reinventing Europe: Reforms for EMU Survival
05 November 2019 1:30 pm CET
Lunchtime Seminar with Annamaria Simonazzi, Sapienza University of Rome
Venue
wiiw, Rahlgasse 3, 1060 Vienna, library (2nd floor)
Description
The EU has become more diverse and unequal: the enlargements (in 2004, 2007, and 2013) rendered the EU ever more heterogeneous, the crisis and the austerity policies have increased divergences between core and periphery, the migration and refugee crisis have been tearing Europe apart.
There are by now many explanations of these trends, most of them focus on the crisis and its aftermath. Less attention has been paid to the distant roots of the crisis. It is argued here that in order to understand what went wrong since the crisis, it is important to recognize the causes of EU fragility before the crisis.
The interdependence between countries at different levels of development entailed the build-up of increasing fragilities: the countries of the European peripheries increased their dependency on the core. At the same time, the export-led model of the core and the austerity policies since the crisis, reduced the absorptive capacity of the internal markets, leading to the increased fragility of the entire EU.
The sustainability of the European project requires to reverse the process of dependency, widening the domestic market and sustaining the productive capacities of late-comer countries. This can only be achieved through a series of related steps: assign responsibility for growth and employment to the EU; the reversal of the policy mix (between monetary and fiscal policy) and a EU-wide industrial policy targeting the social engines of growth (technology, innovation, and social objectives).
Annamaria Simonazzi is Professor of Economics at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where she is the director of the Master in Economics and local coordinator of the European Phd in Socio-Economic and Statistical Studies. She heads the Scientific Committee of the Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini, a research institute carrying out research activities, technical assistance, and capacity building in the fields of labour, economics, development and culture in Europe. She is co-director of the journal Economia & Lavoro and member of the editorial board of the web magazine www.inGenere.it.
She is co-author of the recent volume: Crisis in the Monetary Union: A Core-Periphery Perspective, Routledge Publ. 2018.
Her research interests range from macroeconomics, to social policy, gender and labour economics. Recent publications include: Economic relations between Germany and Southern Europe, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2013 (co-authored); Change in care regimes and female migration. The ‘care drain’ in the Mediterranean, Journal of European Social Policy, 2006 (co-authored); Italy: Continuity and Change in Welfare State Retrenchment in D. Vaughan-Whitehead (Ed.), The European Social Model in Crisis – Is Europe losing its Soul?; Edward Elgar 2015.
Sandwiches will be served.
Paper and presentation, when available, are posted online after the seminar.