The latest developments in Germany and in the Eurozone have triggered fresh interest in SKS latest publication MALTA & THE EURO by Maltese MEP and former Prime Minister Alfred Sant, reported local Booksellers. The European Commission unveiled last week a plan that would give it more power over the eurozone, while strengthening the links with non-euro member states.

The European Commission has  proposed to create, as early as 2019, a European finance minister to manage the fiscal and macroeconomic surveillance of member states and the use of EU budget tools. This proposal is expected to be discussed during the EU Summit in Tallinn later this week, despite that efforts to form a coalition government in Germany have so far failed. The Euro summit to convene in Tallinn on 15 December  is expected  to launch six months of work that would lead decisions in June 2018 on whether or not the single currency area should have a budget, a finance minister and a eurozone assembly in the European Parliament.

Sant argues that a strong eurozone is in Malta’s interests but warned that new structures of a federal nature being proposed by the EU, like the introduction of a eurozone Finance Minister should not be introduced to the detriment of small states like Malta.The 2008 crisis appears to be over, but economic and social diversions are emerging between countries and regions within the eurozone. An essential challenge has become that of determining how this dangerous divergence can be overcome.” remarked the Maltese MEP.

Malta & the Euro is the third volume of a bi-lingual publication which provides a Maltese perspective of developments as they unfolded within the eurozone between 2015 and the end of the Maltese Presidency of the EU in mid-2017.

The publication also includes a story line of the facts related to the introduction, development and turbulences of the Euro between 1997 and June 2017.  This publication is being regarded as an indispensable tool for Maltese students wishing to understand the factors that are conditioning the performance of the Euro, Malta’s national currency for the past ten years.