Vocabulary:

a whiff of	признак (того, что может случиться)
the successes of yore	успехи прошлых времён
craft	создавать, вырабатывать
deliver on (smb’s expectation)	соответствовать (ч-л ожиданиям)
rubber stamps	официальные лица, организации, которые лишь формально выполняют возложенные на них обязательства
by many accounts	по мнению многих
spell smth	означать ч-л

TRANSLATION NOTES:

The Big Bang has gone off.

Big Bang - теория образования вселенной – «Большой взрыв».

С учётом контекста, данное предложение можно перевести следующим образом: Механизм расширения Европейского союза уже запущен.

Text D

1. Read and translate the text.

2. Make a précis and an annotation on the text. Euro Blues

The European Union’s innermost circle may embark on a new expansion. As it prepares to expand again, the euro seems to be working more or less as its founders intended. It has brought stability (oil prices of $75 a barrel have had little impact, even though Europe depends more on imported oil than does America). Countries are queuing up to join (all EU countries bar Britain and Denmark, which have especially negotiated opt-outs, are supposed to become members one day). And the tests of readiness to enter the euro remain as they were agreed at Maastricht in 1991: low inflation, budgetary austerity and exchange-rate stability (the so-called “convergence criteria”).

The reality is rather different. The euro is working, in that it is stable, has established itself as a currency and provides a monetary anchor. But it is not working as it was meant to. When it was dreamt up, the euro was supposed to bring about faster economic convergence. A single currency was the logical completion of the single market, it was said, and would encourage more integration. The end of exchange-rate risk would boost investment and bring cycles into line. The reduction in transaction costs would make economies more efficient, boosting growth.

Moreover, a single currency would, it was claimed, foster policy convergence. Because countries could no longer devalue, they would be forced to undergo the hard grind of reform. Since reform would push all countries in a similar direction, the euro would produce convergence. True believers went further, arguing that currency union would, ultimately, bring about political union. Indeed, for them, that was the point. But even short of this, a single currency would still pull economies together. As a result, the perils of a one-size-fits-all monetary policy would not be so worrisome: eventually, one size would indeed, fit all.

Seven years on, there has been convergence of a kind. The euro area’s long-term interest rates are broadly the same: they have converged on Germany’s. Some countries, such as Ireland and Spain, have played economic catch-up (convergence in income and wealth), though this may have little to do with the euro as such. Arguably, fiscal policy has converged too. That may sound odd when 13 of the 25 EU countries are being hauled over the coals for running “excessive” budget deficits. Yet euro governments have shown greater fiscal restraint than their peers in America or Britain in the past few years.

There has, however, been less convergence of economic performance. Ireland has grown by an average of 6% a year since 1999, Germany by barely 1%. Spain‘s growth has been twice Portugal’s. As a recent paper from Bruegel, a think-tank in Brussels, points out, such divergences are no greater than among American states, but in America they usually result from states being at different points in the economic cycle; in Europe, growth differentials seem to be more persistent. There are few signs that economic cycles have become more closely aligned.

Even when countries have experienced similar pressures (loss of competitiveness, say), they have reacted differently. Irelands and Italy have both lost competitiveness (by running above-average inflation). But Irish exports have boomed whereas Italy’s have stagnated. Germany and France have both gained competitiveness (having below-average inflation), but French exports have been weak while Germany has regained its position as the world’s biggest exporter of goods.

As a result, the risk of the euro’s one-size-fits-all policy (that interest rates will be too loose for the hares, too tight for the tortoises) has been unpleasantly realized. And as for the boarder ambitions for the euro, European countries have not noticeably converged upon economic reform, still less political union: witness the rejection of the draft EU constitution last year by French and Dutch voters.