Uncertainty, Anxiety and the Post-pandemic Economic Environment

There is ample evidence from medical and social sciences that economic crises impact on individual mental health. This makes neuro-psychiatric dynamics and individual mental health, particularly that of entrepreneurs, relevant for economic policy designers. At the same time, economic policies can have an impact on mental health, reducing or increasing economic uncertainty and, consequently, changing the level of anxiety in individuals. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a severe economic crisis and a drastic transformation of the European economic environment. However, the severity and impact of this crisis differ from many other economic and financial setbacks of the past, including the one resulting from the 2008 crisis. Moreover, the consequences of the pandemic on mental health will add to the longterm consequences of the 2010s crisis and the effects of the war at Europe’s Eastern borders. Together, the three crises may increase economic uncertainty in the postpandemic World and its impact on mental health. This essay examines the connections between economic uncertainty, anxiety, and mental health. It suggests considering some relevant elements to estimate the impact of economic uncertainty on individual mental health. Also, hypotheses about the consequences of the “three crises shock” on mental health in the post-pandemic World are advanced. Finally, the essay helps anticipate how the EU anti-crisis economic policies may generate needs and opportunities for mental health care in national health systems

A Europe Apart

This book combines history and political analysis of monetary integration in the European Union (EU) and discusses the main consequences of the euro on both member states' domestic politics and the EU’s institutions and policies

A Europe Apart. History and Politics of European Monetary Integration

This book combines history and political analysis of monetary integration in the European Union (EU) and discusses the main consequences of the euro on both member states’ domestic politics and the EU’s institutions and policies. The book is structured in three parts. In part I, historical analysis demonstrates that monetary instability and the need for international coordination in currency affairs emerged before political integration became an option. This suggests that monetary and political integration are convergent processes instead of two interconnected components of the wider European integration. Besides, the history of European monetary integration shows that many policies proposed today to face the euro and European crises had been discussed and tested in the past and that results were strictly connected to the specific conditions of the moment. Such a policy analysis-oriented approach to monetary history permits discussing with a different and innovative perspective the actual problems of monetary integration and the unmasking of misleading views of European integration widely diffused in the political debate since the end of the 2000s. Part II and part III discuss the political dimension of the European Economic and Monetary Union’s (EMU) problems and the impact on member states’ domestic politics. These sections consider themes such as EU institutional transformation, the new EU governance model that emerged due to the crisis, the problematic relationship between European integration and national democracy, and, finally, the role of monetary integration and opposition to the euro in feeding the growing electoral consensus in favour of populist parties. A conclusive chapter summarises the main results of this long-term analysis and answers some research questions anticipated in this book’s introduction about the real nature and consequences of monetary integration

La politica estera russa nello spazio post-sovietico e le origini del conflitto russo-ucraino

Il collasso dell’Unione sovietica nei primi anni Novanta del XX secolo ha creato un’area d’instabilità politica in tutto lo spazio post-sovietico, in particolare in quello europeo (la cosiddetta doppia periferia) dove le influenze contrapposte della Federazione russa da una parte e dell’Unione europea e della Nato dall’altra hanno influenzato il percorso politico e le trasformazioni istituzionali delle repubbliche nate dalla dissoluzione dell’URSS. Fin dai primi anni della presidenza Putin, la Federazione russa, incapace di esercitare un’influenza determinante sui paesi della doppia periferia e ritenendo essenziale il loro apporto alla ricostituzione di una qualche entità politico-economica post-sovietica, ha ripetutamente sostenuto le istanze separatiste o autonomiste delle minoranze russofone in quei paesi con lo scopo di creare situazioni d’instabilità tali da rendere i paesi non elegibili per l’amissione nell’Ue o nella Nato. Quando è stato necessario i russi hanno anche utilizzato la forza militare per sostenere questa loro politica. Nel caso dell’Ucraina, sono state cercate sinergie e alleanze con gli imprenditori ucraini impegnati nei settori più strettamente legati all’economia russa (metallurgico e minerario in primo luogo) cruciali per ricostituire la parte essenziale del vecchio sistema produttivo sovietico. La rivoluzione dell’Euromaidan, la guerra civile nella cruciale regione del Donbass, e la prospettiva di un’ammissione dell’Ucraina nella Nato hanno messo in pericolo l’intera strategia russa di controllo sulla doppia periferia così come il più ampio progetto di ricostituire uno spazio post-sovietico centrato sulla Russia, inducendo Putin a decidere l’invasione

A EUROPE APART? THE EMU, THE NEW ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND THE FUTURE OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION

This paper deals with the relationship between monetary integration and the rest of European integration. There are three questions to answer. The first is, “Did European integration cause monetary integration?” The second is, “Did European integration shape monetary integration, or it was monetary integration that shaped European integration, at least since Maastricht?” The third question is, “How did the crisis of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) impact European integration on the whole?” The key thesis of this paper is that monetary integration has its own logic, origins, and dynamics. All of them are different from those at work for other sectors under integration. Monetary, economic, and political integration are connected and influenced by each other. Nevertheless, they remain three separate pillars of a historical process that would be better to call “European integrations.” The convergence of these integrations allowed completing monetary integration, which, at that point, oriented the whole integration process

Italy and the Eurozone Crisis

In 2008–13 Italy suffered a double crisis of long-term economic decline and short-term credibility, amplified by the international situation that endangered the stability of the whole Eurozone. Italian public debt and bonds were the pivotal elements of the Italian crisis and the crucial connection between it and the Eurozone crisis. Thanks to the ECB action, the Italian crisis was contained but not resolved