Studia Historica: Historia Contemporánea (Jun 2017)
Battles for the monetary union: a Spanish view from Brussels
Abstract
From a very personal perspective, the article makes explicit the working of policies in favour of the monetary union, in which I participated. Likewise, it emphasises some teachings concerning the decision-making process of the European Commission. These policies and economic trends are analysed from the Spanish integration in 1986 to the recent crisis of the Spanish economy. The paper examines some of the most relevant transformations which took place in our structures, markets, social partners’ attitudes, and in the social, economic and monetary institutions by means of a historical institutional economic perspective which follows Eichengreen’s approach. Further, it takes account of the perspective of the varieties of capitalisms, originally elaborated by Hall and Soskice, and that of social protection systems according to Esping-Andersen’s methodology. There were strong social resistances to the new institutional environment and a lack of political courage to implement the reforms that the Spanish economy necessitated.
