EMU reform as a case-study for multispeed integration

Tomáš Madleňák, as part of the project Think Visegrad, published a policy brief on the reform of the Economic and Monetary Union.

Ever since the Juncker’s Commission opened the “Future of Europe” debate with the White Paper of identical name, in which the “multispeed EU” was officially presented as a viable option, several more or less ambitious ideas were presented on the most exposed area, in which the multispeed (or two-speed) approach has been in use for quite some time already – the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In this short paper I will summarise some of these ideas, try to present and explain the positions of the V4 countries on them based on my on and off-record conversations with V4 representatives in Brussel; and present some basic recommendations on how to progress with the multispeed approach in this and other areas without alienating these countries, which decide not to join since the beginning.