The smooth appearance of euro notes and coins has triggered a valuable reconsideration of European monetary union’s ultimate aims. Two views – active since the process began in the late 1980’s – persist. The first claims that monetary union merely seeks to consolidate the Single Internal Market in goods and services; the second sees the euro as a mechanism to forge closer political union. These two motives are complementary, but the euro’s physical arrival has re-opened old divisions over its economic and political aspects and, to some extent, between the euro’s “ins” and “outs” among EU members.
The smooth appearance of euro notes and coins has triggered a valuable reconsideration of European monetary union’s ultimate aims. Two views – active since the process began in the late 1980’s – persist. The first claims that monetary union merely seeks to consolidate the Single Internal Market in goods and services; the second sees the euro as a mechanism to forge closer political union. These two motives are complementary, but the euro’s physical arrival has re-opened old divisions over its economic and political aspects and, to some extent, between the euro’s “ins” and “outs” among EU members.