Makroekonomické súvislosti Európskej menovej únie
MACROECONOMIC ASPECTS OF THE EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION

Summary/Abstract: The history can offer monetary unions that represented single independent states of various sizes and economic levels (at present e. g. Belgium and Luxembourg), but so far no monetary union was established among economically powerful sovereign states. In this aspect, the EMU has been representing a historical precedence with many supporters, but also with many opponents. The monetary union is influencing the economic sovereignty of a country in a way that its member countries are loosing the key feature of their economic policy and that is the ability to control their own currency, i. e. the ability to control their independent mo-netary policy. It means, that the country once it joined the monetary union, cannot chan-ge the value of its local currency, either by a devaluation or revaluation, and will not be able to determine the volume of money in circulation. In addition, in case of exogenous demand shocks the introduction of a single currency would impede the im-plementation of market tools such as interest rate, exchange rate and that may increase the instability of the economy cycle development and through that to increase the recur-rent unemployment level. Loosing the ability to employ the monetary policy as an independent tool and a solu-tion for economy cycles should not be a problem if the EMU countries’ economy cycles are equal and the single monetary policy will bring the same effect for each of the mem-ber countries. In case of an asymmetric shock (i. e. if the effect for single countries is not the same), we would have to face a different situation. A classical example of the asymmetric shock can be represented by an uneven spread of the aggregate demand. In an open economy hit by the asymmetric shock, the balance can be restored through devaluation or revaluation of the local currency, by transfer of mobile human resources or by flexible wages which are the necessary prerequisite for that. The problem of the asymmetric shock and of the different development in the de-mand, costs and prices in the monetary union cannot be solved by a new exchange rate. The loss of the chance to use this tool in the monetary union is defined as the primary monetary union „cost“. The mobile human resources are the factors that can assist for the balance recovery in the countries hit by the asymmetric shock. The mobile human resources in the EMU are very low to compare the USA. Despite the elimination of legal barriers within the EMU there are still human resources barriers in language skills and culture that prevent temporary or a long term work assignments of workers throughout Europe.

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