From the introduction to the editors:

The contribution by Riccardo Bellofiore and Joseph Halevi presents a historical, political and economic narrative to show why the European Union according to their view is not ‘Keynesian-able’. They argue that the most Keynesian phase of Europe’s post war history occurred during the decade of the European Payment Union, an institution set up by the United States in 1949. Then they show how, after currency convertibility was reintroduced in 1959, the European Common Market moved into a stop-go mode, which they call reverse Keynesianism, which eventually was stopped by Germany’s export counteroffensive. This would have ended the Keynesian phase were it not for the big wage rises that swept through Europe from 1966 to 1972. The authors then move on to consider the world stage in the 1980s, pointing out that, while neither the EEC and later the EU contained any structural elements furthering effective demand, these were indeed generated in a novel way in US capitalism by combining military expenditure with household debt in a context of industrial delocalisation. After outlining the specificity of the European situation in the 1980s and 1990s, Bellofiore and Halevi argue that the European dialectics is constrained between two approaches represented by Neoliberalism and Social-Liberalism. In the conclusion they argue that Keyenesian fiscal and monetary policies make sense only if those relations are challenged by means of structural policies.