EMU (Economic And Monetary Union)

11 Pages 2686 Words

ilised the franc and virtually destroyed the European Monetary System.
The chaos of 1992 and 1993 appeared for a while to have wrought such havoc that the whole EMU project might fail or be postponed. Nevertheless, a five-year period of budgetary stringency and relative monetary calm, albeit accompanied by heavy unemployment on the Continent, gradually enabled most of the would-be participant countries to fulfil, or at least lay claim to fulfilling, the majority of the convergence criteria. Moreover, the momentum in the corridors of power was well-nigh unstoppable. European governments had from the beginning recognised EMU as an essentially political concept. Unable to force the pace of constitutional integration, because of the reluctance (the Commission would say unpreparedness) of voters, Francois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and Jacques Delors had pressed forward with monetary integration instead. Economic integration would follow, then full federation. The lesson of history, that political unification should have preceded a single currency, as...