Acceso usuarios
Alan Dashwood
This article focuses on the "Roadmap" towards the completion of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that was adopted by the European Council in December 2012; more specifically the issues that governments of the United Kingdom are liable to be faced with at different points in the journey by the members of the Euro Area towards full fiscal and economic union (assuming that progress towards that goal continues to be made and that, as seems probable, the United Kingdom chooses to remain aloof), and on ways of resolving those issues. Following the introduction, there is a section discussing the wide variety of legal and institutional arrangements specific to members of the Euro Area that exist already. The next section looks more closely at the three legal stages that the Roadmap envisages, and considers whether these are likely to entail amendments to the EU Treaties. The most substantial section, on the legal issues of remaining inside the Union but outside EMU, examines in turn: the immediate issue of possible "caucusing" by eurozone members, i.e. systematically voting together against important interests of the United Kingdom; the mediumterm issue that the United Kingdom might be prevented from exploiting its potential veto over Treaty changes desired by eurozone members, in order to achieve its own re-negotiation objectives, by the expedient of resorting to an intergovernmental instrument along the lines of the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG); and the longer-term issue of how to establish institutional arrangements appropriate to complete fiscal and economic union, while enabling the United Kingdom and other nonparticipating Member States to remain as members of the European Union. The overall conclusion is that there are good reasons for optimism that solutions can be arrived at, though this will require patience, commitment and intelligent negotiating.
