The EUROLINK Experience (1978–1983)

This chapter presents the short-lived EUROLINK experience at the DG II. The development of the EUROLINK multi-country model fits with the broader European context described in Chap. 2 : macroeconometric modelling had become a “standard” for expertise for policymaking and policymaking institutions played a driving role, in the 1970s, in the development of such models in Italy, France and Belgium. The DG II wanted to raise to this new “standard”, and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa (the DG II Director between 1978 and 1983) actively pursued this objective. This chapter shows that the decentralised approach adopted for EUROLINK proved unsuccessful though. The heterogeneous developments of macroeconometric modelling in different countries made it challenging for the DG II to “fit the models together”; the complexity of the ensuing EUROLINK model made the model “unfit” to the culture and needs of the institution.