Institutum Europeaum was a libertarian think tank based in

Sint-Genesius-Rode Sint-Genesius-Rode (; french: Rhode-Saint-Genèse, ) is a Municipalities of Belgium, municipality located in Flemish Region, Flanders, one of three regions of Belgium, in the province of Flemish Brabant. The municipality comprises the town of Sint ...

, a suburb of Brussels, Belgium. The Institutum was founded and led by Michiel ( Michael) Van Notten, a Dutch lawyer and intellectual, in the late 1970s until his death in 2002. Institutum Europaeum was in the vanguard of the efforts to prevent the centralization and growth of power in the

European Community The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

, and was particularly active in arguing against

European Monetary Union The economic and monetary union (EMU) of the European Union is a group of policies aimed at converging the economies of member states of the European Union at three stages. There are three stages of the EMU, each of which consists of prog ...

. One of its most influential efforts was publishing Professor

Pascal Salin Pascal Salin (born May 16, 1939) is a French economist, professor '' emeritus'' at the Université Paris-Dauphine and a specialist in public finance and monetary economics. He is a former president of the Mont Pelerin Society (1994 to 1996). Bio ...

's, L'unité monétaire européenne : au profit de qui? (The European Currency Unit: for whose benefit?), which contained a foreword by Nobel Prize winning Economist and libertarian thinker

Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Haye ...

. This work provided the impetus for a Conference held in Brussels organized by the Institutum on European Monetary Union and Currency Competition at which papers were presented by Salin, Hayek and fellow Nobel Prize laureate in economics

Milton Friedman Milton Friedman (; July 31, 1912 – November 16, 2006) was an American economist and statistician who received the 1976 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his research on consumption analysis, monetary history and theory and the ...

, along with Leonard Liggio, Pedro Schwartz, Lawrence White and others in the field of libertarian thought and economics. These papers were published together in a volume published by the Institutum Europaeum, Currency Competition and Monetary Union. Although these arguments were unsuccessful in halting European monetary union and the eventual adoption of the Euro, the warnings of the instability which European monetary union would create, would ultimately gain widespread credence decades later after the predictions contained in the book became reality. More importantly, these efforts of the Institutum Europeaum were influential in the Eurosceptic movement, which prevented the United Kingdom from joining the Euro Zone, and led to the growth of the Eurosceptic movement. The Institutum Europaeum was also active in the anti-Federalist Bruges Group, and regularly sent representatives to its Congresses. In addition to its work relating to the European Community/European Union, the Institutum Europeaum was also involved in promoting libertarian thought in Europe, particularly to those working for the EC/EU and its institutions. Van Notten also represented the Institutum by regularly lecturing on the virtues of liberty and limited government.

References

Libertarian think tanks 1970s establishments in Belgium Organisations based in Brussels 2002 disestablishments in Belgium {{europe-org-stub