ABSTRACT
The central premises of EU economic policy are based on the idea that markets are efficient and work optimally. The European Monetary Union (EMU) is conceived of as a set of countries competing among themselves, and it is assumed that the rules of the game make convergence possible among member countries with regard to the economic and social conditions that obtain therein. But this process of convergence has not taken place within the EU: differences between clusters of countries (centre vs. periphery, Northern vs. Southern Europe) and between countries inside the same cluster (e.g., Italy and Spain) have been on the increase. This chapter critically considers this view, focusing on the evolution of the productive structure and the labour market during the Great Recession in Spain and Italy. Although the EU’s approach expects that competitive mechanisms will lead to economic and social convergence in EU countries, the analysis carried out herein suggests the opposite: differences between countries have increased and will only continue to do so without a direct policy for convergence in social conditions and for the economic integration of productive structures.
