Policy Implications of Globalisation and Regionalisation

In today’s increasingly globalised economy, it is something of a paradox that while policy-making autonomy is being progressively ceded by states to supranational organisations, regions within nation states have also begun to assert their rights to a greater degree of administrative and policy self-determination. However, just as the exercise of certain types of policy autonomy in the past for small states like Ireland was not always without problems, policy integration of regions into nation states – such as Scotland and Northern Ireland – h s not necessarily provided them with guaranteed participation in the prosperity of other richer regions within their nation state. The present symposium was prompted by the advent of Ireland’s entry into EMU on January 1st this year and the loss of policy tools that EMU membership implied. Exchange rates seem to hold a fascination often beyond their real significance. On the morning of March 30th, 1979, seventeen days after Ireland joined the European Monetary System (EMS), I was in the Central Bank of Ireland and remember the moment when a frisson of excitement tempered by a degree of anxiety ran throug