Now that the process of full implementation of European Monetary Union has begun, it is time to shift attention away from the process of introduction to the implications that the common currency will have for a wide range of institutions and policy areas. The wider political and social institutions of the European Union are not well developed there is an institutional deficit which parallels the more widely know democratic deficit. Monetary arrangements of nation states are imbedded in a range of political, cultural, economic and historical factors. Will mechanisms of these kinds eventually develop at the European level? Can national structures adapt to meet the challenge? The contributors to After the Euro tackle these questions and in doing so, take the debate beyond the economic and sovereignty questions which have so far dominated the debate.
