Economic pressures and technological change are causing governments across Europe to reassess the role of the state in the economy. Privatization and market liberalization have been embraced by some European Union governments as a way of shaking up sleepy state monopolies, while providing useful government funding at a time when governments need to reduce budget deficits to meet the Maastricht fiscal criteria for a common currency in Europe. This volume discusses privatization in the major European economies. It considers the different perspectives on privatization theory and policy in Europe and thereby identifies different national characteristics in terms of the motivation to privatize, the scale of privatization and its consequences. In the opening chapters there is a detailed overview of the theoretical economic issues involved in privatization and an assessment of privatization across the EU. The remaining ten chapters contain national case studies of EU countries which review the history of state ownership and privatization in each of these countries and evaluate the extent of privatization.