Giacomo Vaciago in Search of the Soul of Europe

digital

Article

Magazine

RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI

Fascicle

RIVISTA INTERNAZIONALE DI SCIENZE SOCIALI - 2018 - 4. An Issue in Honour of Giacomo Vaciago

Title

Giacomo Vaciago in Search of the Soul of Europe

Author

Giacomo Costa

Publisher

Vita e Pensiero

Format

Article |

Pdf

Online from

05-2019

Doi

10.26350/000518_000018

Issn

0035-676X (print) | 1827-7918 (digital)

€ 6.00

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Description

This paper is a revisitation of Giacomo Vaciago’s ‘‘A soul for Europe’’. Perhaps his main theses are; (i) the incompleteness of the Monetary Union: (ii) the inadequacy of the official diagnosis of the 2009-2012 financial and economic crisis; (iii) the persistent lack of a common fiscal policy; (iv) the necessity to take up the ‘‘social market economy’’ if the European Union is to have a soul. I argue that the founders of the Monetary Union did not provide the Union with the institutions necessary to make up for the national policy tools forfeited. More than a coordinated fiscal policy, some key fiscal programs are needed if the Union is to survive. However, Germany draws from its ‘‘social market economy’’ doctrine the determination to prevent the Monetary Union from becoming a transfer union. This may stall any progress in the construction of ‘‘a more genuine Union’’ for decades to come.