BREATHING LIFE INTO THE ECU

The European, 26 August - 1 september 1994

Europe's economies are growing, swollen governments deficits are set to shrink and a single currency is bqck on the agenda. But few believe that the ecu will begin to circulate in just over two years from now, the earliest date envisaged. It does seem feasible, howewer, that there will be monetary union for a core of currencies by the turn of the century.

This makes it all the more urgent to reassure ordinary people that exchange rates will not be "irrevocably" locked heedless of their wishes and without their consent. Three years ago Europe's leaders signed up in haste to the Maastricht blueprint. The deadline of 1 January 1999 for the introduction of a single currency now looks at best arbitrary.

Opinion pools suggest that most Europeans still favour a single currency. But the transition will give rise to understandable fears over the disappearance of national currencies and the loss of national control over monetary policy. There will also be questions about the fate of those countries excluded from monetary union, a worry compounded by the anxiety that currency union will only ever be done on German terms.

Britain and Denmark have a Maastricht opt out. Thanks to the ruling of its Constitutional Court, the German Bundestag too has belatedly won the right to a vote before the revered deutschmark is consigned to history. But as the deadlines set three years ago approach, the pace of events threatens to overtake ordinary people. The danger is that they will soon come to feel that a single currency is simply being foisted on them. Nothing could be more harmful to European integration.