Reference : Raymond Barre: Modernising France through European Monetary Cooperation
Parts of books : Contribution to collective works
Law, criminology & political science : Political science, public administration & international relations
Sustainable Development
http://hdl.handle.net/10993/28244
Raymond Barre: Modernising France through European Monetary Cooperation
English
Howarth, David[University of Luxembourg > Faculty of Language and Literature, Humanities, Arts and Education (FLSHASE) > Identités, Politiques, Sociétés, Espaces (IPSE) >]
Aug-2016
Architects of the Euro Intellectuals in the Making of European Monetary Union
Dyson, Kenneth
Maes, Ivo
Oxford University Press
Chapter 4
Yes
9780198735915
Oxford
UK
[en] Economic and Monetary Union ; European integration ; Raymond Barre ; France ; Liberalism ; Capital liberalism ; European Monetary System ; inflation
[en] The true significance of Barre as an architect of European Economic and Monetary Union should be seen in terms of his economic convictions. They led him - far earlier than most of his compatriots, and against many detractors within French political, policy making and academic circles — to support the three main macro-economic stepping stones to EMU: macro-economic convergence based on low inflation; exchange-rate targeting (through an external exchange-rate regime) to reinforce domestic efforts to bring down inflation; and capital liberalization. As European Commissioner, and then as French prime minister from 1976 to 1981 with a concurrent stint as Finance Minister from 1976-1978, Barre maintained his consistent support for these three policy goals, although without the telos of a single currency by way of official justification. Prior to the Delors Report, Barre never publicly stated his support for the creation of a single European currency emitted by a European central bank. Barre repeatedly claimed that he was a European by conviction, but his Europeanism remained one in which Member States retained control. Barre was no fan of supra-nationalism. Domestic economic concerns and the competitiveness of the French economy were always his priorities.