Missed at Maastricht

Missed at Maastricht examines why the euro was born without the economic union that many believed was essential to sustain it. The formation of the euro is often explained as either an accident of history or the grand vision of a few key leaders. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol upends this account. Recovering the perspectives of overlooked officials and lesser-known committees, he shows that ambitious proposals for economic union—a planning bureau, an unemployment benefit, a deposit insurance scheme, a center for economic policy coordination, a borrowing capacity—were advanced from as early as 1957. The problem, ultimately, was not a lack of ideas; rather, it was a persistent refusal to centralize decision-making power in a supranational authority. Anything resembling a transfer of sovereignty to a European body was, for most policymakers, politically unthinkable—a "federal anathema." Reframing the Economic and Monetary Union's lopsidedness not as a design failure of the early 1990s but as the culmination of decades of shelved ambitions, Missed at Maastricht offers essential context for understanding Europe's ongoing predicament.