I agree that political union is the real elephant. but as it is a huge project and will take time to achive, I would precisely not play down the importance of functioning markets.
You are right that much of what you currently hear about it is blabla.
What about this idea to see things: Right now, functioning European markets are equated with neo-liberalism and automatically we think about de-regulation, liberalisations etc. when we here this. But markets in the EU could of course at the same time function across borders, and be regulated (to a certain degree ;) on a European scale. For EMU, the importance is that they work across borders. But given the current political climate, this will surely not be achieved by a pure neo-lib deregulation policy. The opposite is the case, just look into the growing tendencies of national protectionisms.
By the way, an interesting and debatable piece of thought on the organisation of postal services in the EU is here http://www.newropeans-magazine.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5005&Itemid =110
This has of course nothing to do with EMU in a strict sense, but it shows much of the sensitivities related to the deregulation agenda put in place some time ago.
Looking forward to reading you, Daniela
The message is "regulation is bad", not "national regulation is ineffective today, let's replace it by European regulations. Actually, the discourse is right, but the practice is the exact opposite.
And thus the coordination of economic and fiscal policies at the European level do not happen, because that would go against the deregulation train, or the "sovereignty" of various countries, etc... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
