ABSTRACT
As the previous chapters within this edited collection demonstrate, participation in the European Union (EU) single currency will place a straitjacket upon UK macroeconomic policy and sovereignty, thereby increasing the difficulty of pursuing its national interest. The model for Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) designed by representatives from Europe’s central banks, and ratified by all member states in the form of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) in 1993, seeks to impose a particular institutional framework which restricts the flexibility of action of individual countries in order to enable economic policy to be determined, or at least coordinated, from the centre. Many economists (see, for instance, Jamieson 1998; Michie 1999; Minford 1999; Ormerod 1999b) argue that greater autonomy for individual nation states, under the principle of subsidiarity, might provide a more stable economic environment in which to pursue further cooperation between countries. However, largely due to the political desire to tie members more closely together, EMU seeks to progressively replace economic autonomy for a nation state by the requirement to coordinate its economic strategy with the EU norm, or else be subject to sanctions levied by the EU Commission (Pennant-Rea et al. 1997).
