Doomed to succeed

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The euro may have fallen short of its objectives, but on its 20th birthday its survival inspires calls for further European integration

In February 2002, the euro became the sole currency of 12 European Union (EU) member states, replacing the French franc, the German mark, the Italian lira, the Spanish peseta amongst others. The European Monetary System (EMS) is a complex convertibility agreement between these currencies. It’s also one of the most ambitious monetary experiments in human history. 20 years after this landmark moment, what’s the state of the common currency’s balance sheet? It was a slow burner The concept of a common European currency can be traced back to 1929, when German statesman Gustav Stresemann urged the League of Nations (the United Nations’ predecessor) to adopt one. It took until the 1970s for any serious discussion of potential implementation to pick up, with the European Economic Community (EEC,  forerunner to the EU) even overseeing some monetary cooperation between its various central banks.  After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the French agreed to drop their opposition to German reu...

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