Disadvantages
1. The instability of the system.
Throughout most of the 1980s the UK refused to join the ERM (Exchange rate mechanism). It argued that it would be impossible to maintain exchange rate stability within the ERM, especially in the early 1980s when the pound was a petro-currency and when the UK inflation rate was consistently above that of Germany. When the UK joined the ERM in 1990 there had been three years of relative currency stability in Europe and it looked as though the system had become relatively robust. The events of Sept. 1992, when the UK and Italy were forced to leave the system, showed that the system was much less robust than had been thought.
2. Over estimation of Trade benefits.
Some economists argue that the trade and cost advantages of EMU have been grossly over estimated. There is little to be gained from moving from the present system which has some stability built into it, to the rigidities which EMU would bring.
3. Loss of Sovereignty.
On the political side, it is argued that an independent central bank is undemocratic. Governments must be able to control the actions of the central banks because Governments have been democratically elected by the people, whereas an independent central bank would be controlled by a non elected body. Moreover, there would be a considerable loss of sovereignty. Power would be transferred from London to Brussels. This would be highly undesirable because national governments would lose the ability to control policy. It would be one more step down the road towards a Europe where Brussels was akin to Westminster and Westminster akin to a local authority.
4. Deflationary tendencies.
Perhaps the most important economic argument relates to the deflationary tendencies within the system. In the 1980s and 90's France succeeded in reducing her inflation rates to German levels, but at the cost of higher unemployment, For the UK, it can be argued, that membership of the ERM between 1990 and 1992 prolonged unnecessarily the recessional period. This is because the adjustment mechanism acts rather like that of the gold standard. Higher inflation in one ERM country means that it is likely to generate current account deficits and put downward pressure on its currency. To reduce the deficit and reduce inflation, the country has to deflate its economy. In the UK, it could be argued that the battle to bring down inflation had been won by the time the UK joined the ERM in 1990. However, the UK joined at too high an exchange rate. It was too high because the UK was still running a large current account deficit at an exchange rate of around 3 Dm to the pound. The UK government then spent the next two years defending the value of the pound in the ERM with interest rates which were too high to allow the economy to recover. Many forecasts predicted that, had the UK not left the ERM in Sept 1992, inflation in the UK in 1993 would have been negative (ie prices would have fallen).The economic cost of this would have been continued unemployment at 3million and a stagnant economy. When the UK did leave the ERM and it rapidly cut interest rates from 10% to five and a half %, there was strong economic growth and the current account position improved, but there was an inflation cost.
Another problem that the early 1990s highlighted was that the needs of one part of Europe can have a negative impact on the rest of Europe. In the early 1990s, the Germans struggled with the economic consequences of German reunification. There was a large increase in spending in Germany with a consequent rise in inflation. The Bundesbank responded by raising German interest rates. As a result, there was an upward pressure on the DM as speculative money was attracted into Germany. Germansy's ERM partners were then forced to raise their interst rates to defend their currencies. However, higher interest rates forced most of Europe into recession in 1992 - 1993. Countries such as France couldn't then get out of recession by cutting interest rates because this would have put damaging strains on the ERM. The overall result was that Europe suffered a recession because of local reunification problems in Germany. Critics of the ERM and EMU argue that this could be repeated frequently if EMU were ever to be achieved. Local economies would suffer economic shocks because of policies, forced on them, designed to meet the problems of other parts of Europe.
One way around this would be to have large transfers of money from region to region when a local area experienced a recession, e.g. N. Ireland which suffered structural unemployment for most of the post war period, has had its economy propped up by large transfers of resources from richer areas of the UK with lower unemployment. However, regional transfers are very small at the moment unfortunately. Moreover to approximate the regional transfers which occur at the moment in, say, Britain, there would have to be a huge transfer of expenditures from national governments to Brussels - just what anti Europeans are opposed to. Ref: library.thinkquest.org
