For example, it resulted in the loss of economic sovereignty. Once a country became a member of the Eurozone, national central banks and the Bank of England lost the ability to use interest rate guidelines to achieve sovereign macroeconomic objectives (James, 2012). Due to the global recession and financial crisis, recession-hit countries like Greece were unable to unilaterally reduce interest rates. Furthermore, many European countries have failed to fully join the euro area due to convergence difficulties. In the United Kingdom, for example, convergence is not easy due to the exclusivity of its financial services sector and real estate market and because of the closeness of its business cycle to that of the United States. Furthermore, the UK labor market is extremely flexible compared to those of France and Spain, making convergence difficult