The Future of the Euro and Challenges for the Western Balkans

• Main Authors: Jelena Damnjanović, Miroslav Jovanović
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Economics 2017-06-01
• Series: Acta Economica
• Subjects: euro; EU; Greece; Germany; debt write-off; quantitative easening
• Online Access: http://ae.ef.unibl.org/index.php/AE/article/view/24
• ISSN: 1512-858X; 2232-738X

The creation of the euro in 1999 was celebrated as one of the most important events in the European history in the 20th century. Expectations about an increase in welfare were enormous. However, all started to go downhill in the European Union (EU) from the introduction of the euro. Tis downturn started slowly, but subsequently accelerated to the extent that not only the euro, but also the EU is on the brink of collapse. Germany was the only beneficiary of the eurozone, while other countries were without obvious eurozone-related benefits. Greece is in dire economic straits from which there is no exit for at least one generation. Germany has enormous exports surpluses, but some of them will not be paid. Would Germany be better off without such surpluses? Is the economic marriage in the eurozone becoming dreary and unsustainable? The EU should abandon the euro in order to save the project of European integration. If the Western Balkan countries continue their accession path towards the EU and pay for that enormous price (especially important for Serbia), what will they get in return? They will get an unstable and dangerously unfunctional EU, the EU in which solidarity (one of the prime EU values) is neglected. They will get the EU whose future is in doubt.