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This study describes the long path that allowed Italy to give up the traditional policy of high wages-high inflation-devaluation of the national currency

The euro and stakes of the Euro-Mediterranean Policy Since the Conference of Barcelona (1995) the Mediterranean policy of Europe, without to be called into question, mark a step. The creation of the euro will have for the economies of southern banks and east of the Mediterranean multiple and complex consequences. It is essential, for Europe as for these Countries of the South benefitting from the apparition of this currency, with a strong international vocation, to re-examine their economic and financial relations and to reactivate their co-operation. That can appear paradoxical in a context of financial liberalization that they have all adopted. It is true that current flows of northern bank to southern bank (assistances, financial operations, direct investments) remain, in spite of the efforts carried out, very insufficient. The euro can contribute to make evolve the financial relations and the interdependence could be very different. Without calling into question the sovereignty and the independence of the macroeconomic policies of the nations concerned, the constitution of a vast euro zone seems possible and desirable. It however requires the setting-up of a Regional Organization of Monetary and Financial Co-operation whose article traces the broad outline.

In my comment paper on Professor Schroeder’s report (1974) I shall discuss two points. First of all I intend to examine whether the benefits that the Soviet Union gained and is gaining from its trade with the Comecon countries can be meant as due to «exploitation » or a « discrimination » against them. The second topic on which Professor Schroeder’s paper (1974) mainly caught my attention is that of Comecon integration. In the last part of my paper I shall therefore attempt an evaluation of the integration efforts within the Comecon compared with the parallel efforts made in Western Europe in the framework of the EEC. In the economics relationships between the Soviet Union and the Comecon countries Professor Schroeder (1974) distinguishes two main periods and argues that until 1956 the Soviet Union benefited from a net capital transfert from Eastern Europe, whose size however cannet be specified. This «unequal partnership » was made possible by the political dominance of the Soviet Union and its means were war reparations, unrequited export deliveries to Eastern Europe and discriminatory pricing in trade. Professor Schroeder (1974) seems therefore to support the opinion that during the first main period in the Comecon’s life. the Soviet Union, in a sense, « exploited » and « discriminated » its socialist partners in Eastern Europe.