European Monetary System

European Monetary System, arrangement by which most nations of the European Union (EU) linked their currencies to prevent large fluctuations relative to one another. It was organized in 1979 to stabilize foreign exchange and counter inflation among members. Periodic adjustments raised the values of strong currencies and lowered those of weaker ones, but after 1986 changes in national interest rates were used to keep the currencies within a narrow range. In the early 1990s the European Monetary System was strained by the differing economic policies and conditions of its members, especially the newly reunified Germany, and Britain permanently withdrew from the system.

In 1994 the European Monetary Institute was created as transitional step in establishing the

European Central Bank (ECB) and a common currency. The ECB, which was established in 1998, is responsible for setting a single monetary policy and interest rate for the adopting nations, in conjunction with their national central banks. Late in 1998, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain cut their interest rates to a nearly uniformly low level in an effort to promote growth and to prepare the way for a unified currency.

At the beginning of 1999, the same EU members adopted a single currency, the

euro, for foreign exchange and electronic payments. (Greece, which did not meet the economic conditions required until 2000, subsequently also adopted the euro.) The introduction of the euro four decades after the beginings of the European Union was widely regarded as a major step toward European political unity. By creating a common economic policy, the nations acted to put a damper on excessive public spending, reduce debt, and make a strong attempt at taming inflation. However, the budget-deficit ceilings established in the process of introducing the euro have been violated by a number of countries since 2001, in part because of national government measures to stimulate economic growth. In 2003, EU finance ministers, faced with the fact that economic downturns had put France and Germany in violation of the ceilings, temporarily suspended the pact. The European Commission challenged that move, however, and the EU high court annulled the finance ministers' decision in 2004.

Euro coins and notes began circulating in Jan., 2002, and local currencies were no longer accepted as legal tender two months later. The European Currency Unit (ECU), which was established in 1979, was the forerunner of the euro. Derived from a basket of varying amounts of the currencies of the EU nations, the ECU was a unit of accounting used to determine exchange rates among the national currencies.

Of the European Union members—Denmark, Great Britain, and Sweden—that did not adopt the euro when it was introduced perhaps the most notable is Britain, which continues to regard itself as more or less separate from Europe. In all three nations there has been strong public anxiety that dropping their respective national currencies would give up too much independence. Danish voters rejected adoption of the euro in a referendum in 2000; the vote was seen as strengthening euro opponents in Britain and Sweden. Of the 12 EU members admitted since 2004, only one—Slovenia—has adopted the euro.