The Existential Trilemma of EMU in a Model of Fiscal Target Zone

The EMU should create monetary and fiscal mechanisms to safeguard its irreversibility in exceptional situations, according to this EconPol Working Paper. The financial crisis and the coronavirus crisis have shown that the EMU's integrity can only be saved by relaxing either monetary orthodoxy, or fiscal orthodoxy, or both, when exposed to large, systemic shocks. The authors illustrate how such monetary and fiscal mechanisms could be designed by using a fiscal target zone model, where EU member governments are willing to abide with the commitment to debt stability under the no-bailout clause only up to an upper limit of their feasible fiscal effort. The study also shows that EMU completion means providing a monetary and/or fiscal emergency backstop to the irreversibility principle. The alternative to such mechanisms is to include an explicit exit clause in the treaties, the authors conclude.