News from the Eastern Front- Romania’s Euro Crisis Approach

While there was much debate and talk about the Euro area governments’ saving measures, aimed at appeasing jittery markets or securing long run stability, little is known of the countries at the periphery of the EMU.
Romania is set to join the Euro area in 2014 and like other countries in the region (and elsewhere) is looking anxiously at the development of the story. Most Romanian banks are owned by Euro-area banks, especially Greek and Austrian ones. Therefore the development of the Hellenic debt story was watched with much attention. More recently the Romanian government (a coalition of Liberal-Democrats and the Hungarian minority party ) announced fierce spending measures aimed at the oversized public sector.

The Czech Republic in the EU – are the costs too high?

The European Union was established as a natural consequence of deepening cooperation. The main purposes, as far as I understand them, were to remove barriers–which were counterproductive and unnecessary for human freedom and prosperity–and to facilitate effective implementation of projects which had previously been unrealized on the national level. To achieve this goal, centralized institutions have been established to redirect power to the supranational level. So far so good.

But what if different countries within the Union have different interests?