Francisco Lucas Pires’ views on the economic and monetary union and the single currency: An assessment twenty years later

In his volume on the Treaty of Amsterdam, Francisco Lucas Pires provided a thorough and critical analysis of the then recently approved Treaty. In particular, he examined whether the Treaty of Amsterdam marked the shift from a European integration process focused on the market to a European society, and he showed extraordinary capacities to foresee how the European Union (EU) would develop from then onwards. This chapter first examines Francisco Lucas Pires’ views on the Treaty of Amsterdam and the single currency in general and assesses the evolution the EU has witnessed since. The following part of this analysis is devoted specifically to the study of the features of the EU’s economic institutional governance contained in the postscript). The final section concludes.