Substudy 4: European Economic Policy; Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union, Lisbon, Enlargement

The study offers an overview of how economic policy works in the EU, summarising the economic effects of past and future steps towards integration (internal market, EMU, Lisbon strategy, EU enlargement). The economic policy architecture pursued by the EU (especially in its economic and monetary union) is characterised by its central monetary policy and a decentralised (but expensively co-ordinated) fiscal policy. This asymmetric macropolicy results in limitations (varying in their scope depending on the policy field) on the member countries' autonomous range of economic policy action.