The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) of the European Union is a unique historical experiment, as no monetary union of sovereign states has survived to date. This book explores how it could work, and develops scenarios of how things might evolve in case of failure.

List of Charts, Tables and Textboxes; Introduction; 1. A Question of War and Peace; 2. No Longer a Question of War and Peace; 3. A History of Failures; 4. The Euro’s Happy Childhood and Its Abrupt End; 5. A Crisis of Legitimacy; 6. A (Hidden) Balance-of-Payments Crisis; 7. Forward or Backward?; 8. In Search of a Lender of Last Resort; 9. The Politics of Euro Rescue; 10. A New Foundation for EMU; 11. Summary and Conclusions; Acknowledgements; Notes; Index

Thomas Mayer is Senior Fellow at the Center of Financial Studies at Goethe University Frankfurt and Senior Advisor to Deutsche Bank’s management and key clients. From 2010 to 2012 he was Chief Economist of Deutsche Bank Group and Head of Deutsche Bank Research. He has previously held positions at Goldman Sachs and the International Monetary Fund.