In the process towards European economic and monetary union, two reports played crucial roles. The 1970 Werner Report argued for both a supranational monetary pillar and a supranational economic pillar, while the 1989 Delors Report focused on the monetary pillar, and there was scepticism about discretionary fiscal policy. A background paper to the Delors Report, The Werner Report Revisited, identified four weaknesses of the Werner Report: absence of internal momentum, institutional ambiguities, insufficient constraints on national policies and an inappropriate policy conception – issues that remain very much on the European Union agenda today.
About the Author
Ivo Maes is a Visiting fellow at Bruegel and a Professor and Robert Triffin Chair at KU Leuven. He has been a visiting professor at Duke University (USA), the Université de Paris-Sorbonne and the Università Roma Tre. He retired as a Senior Advisor at the Economics and Research Department of the National Bank of Belgium in 2021. From May 2015 to June 2018, Ivo served as the President of the Council of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought. In 2003, he was a member of the Committee for Institutional Reform of the West African Monetary Union.