The York Research Database

The European Monetary Union has to be looked at against the background of the crisis-ridden development of capital accumulation since the early 1970s, The attempt at creating a zone of monetary stability in Europe and the worldwide crisis of capitalist accumulation belong together. EMU amounts to an institutional attempt at buttressing domestic policies of austerity with a supranational anchor and the establishment of an anti-inflationary police force that seeks to protect member states from speculative runs by securing the right of private property internally. It moreover: seeks to de-politicise the attack on labour movements and to reinforce and exploit its regional and national fragmentation.