Paper's abstract

Jérôme Creel, The Case of the Euro Zone. The Precautionary Principle, Palliative to the Lack of Prevention?
European economic policy responses to the coronavirus shock contrast sharply with the organization of economic policies that has prevailed since the creation of euro. Fiscal discipline rules and priority inflation targeting have been put on hold, after having been weakened by the previous global crisis of 2007-2009. As a result, the public authorities failed to prevent a succession of major crises and adopted ultra-expansionary policies. Their logic itself has changed: if preventing excessive deficits has failed and fiscal discipline makes no sense during the crisis, everything possible must be done to minimize the crisis and emerge from it as quickly and sustainably as possible. The precautionary principle therefore seems to be driving public authorities. This chapter describes the transition toward the application of this principle and examines its effects and expected risks for the economy.

Key Words : Economic policy - euro
t. 62, 2020 : p. 165-179

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