ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the context for financial integration in Europe, focusing on how changes in global financial markets are shaping the restructuring of finance in the European Union's (EU). It also focuses on the ongoing restructuring of financial services and the moves towards a single currency in the EU. The chapter describes how financial restructuring is likely to affect prevailing regional inequalities in Europe, particularly in the context of the changing map of Europe and the possible enlargement of the EU to include central and eastern European countries. The development of financial markets in eastern Europe is an important part of the transformation from planned to market economies. The European Monetary System did deliver greater monetary stability to European economies, particularly through the mid- to late 1980s. In Hungary, efforts to decentralize the banking system and to introduce competition again started very early.
