The Political Impediments to Euro Adoption in Poland

Poland's road to the euro proved bumpy and its early status as a euro pacesetter developed into one of euro laggard. So why, prior to the sovereign debt crisis, did Poland remain among the group of Central and East European countries that had not yet adopted the euro? What are the political barriers for euro adoption in Poland? This paper argues that domestic factors such as the existence of veto points, public opinion, central bank institutional features, and the role of political elites are key to answering the research questions. With the euro crises, the domestic problems were accompanied by declining public support for euro adoption along with an unfavorable external environment that is pushing euro adoption further away

The EU Response to Regime Change in the Wake of the Arab Revolt: Differential Implementation

Following the Arab Spring, one might expect a paradigm shift in the EU's attitude towards the MENA - at least with respect to democracy promotion. However, the EU response has been neither consistent nor coherent. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: How did the EU react to the Arab Spring events in North Africa? Is there evidence of any change in the goals and instruments pursued by the EU after the Arab Spring? And, do these goals and instruments change coherently across countries? The paper argues, first, that EU goals remain security and stability driven. While the EU viewed the Arab Spring as a window of opportunity for democracy, as events developed the EU prioritized security concerns as a response to the threat of instability in the MENA. And second, the utilization of instruments varied across time and cases due to the domestic politics of the targeted countries

Euro adoption policies in the second decade: the remarkable cases of the Baltic States

The second decade of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), starting with the financial crisis morphing into the sovereign debt crisis, had diverging effects on member states. The Baltic States were hit particu- 10 larly hard. Faced with an immediate collapse of their economies, the Baltic States were advised by international organisations to float their currencies; instead, these countries chose to speed up their commitment to join the euro including the choice to keep the exchange rate fixed. Why? In this paper, we argue that the main reason for this 15 decision needs to be found in the domestic politics of these three Baltic States. The domestic actors we look at include, among others, monetary authorities, government and opposition. Even when faced with strong international criticism, the three Baltic State governments chose their own path, which in this case included continuing 20 their planned euro adoption policies even in the face of costly domestic adjustments.Institutions, Decisions and Collective Behaviou