El Repte de la moneda única europea

The introduction of the single currency is one of the most important events that will strongly affect our lives. The process has been drawn out, starting in 1990 with the Delors Plan. The euro is the logical outcome of the single market. It will have taken twelve years to implement, just like the single tariff. L'euro has a political and economic logic. Many currencies make a single financial market difficult to have, but a single market does not require a single currency and it will not benefit everyone. We must be ready to make sacrifices. A difficulty with monetary union is the abscence of a common budgetary policy. Germany is mistrustful and wants to impose automatic penalties to prevent a weakening of the euro. German business is in favour of the euro to avoid competitive devaluations from the South, while German sayers are afraid to lose out. Public finances have deteriorated badly and Maastricht criteria are formally complied with creative accounting in Germain, and France as much as Spain. This is collective deception. The transition period has been too long and badly constructed, extending the Werner Plan of the sixties in the instantaneous markets and large indebtedness of the nineties. The burocratic construction of the Euro in three phases is not coherent. We have learnt nothing of the problems of the, European Exchange Mechanism in returning to fixed exchange rates. There will be difficult times for Spain