‘The Generous Utopia of Yesterday Can Become the Practical Achievement of Tomorrow’: 1000 Years of Monetary Union in Europe

Monetary unions have been a recurring element in European history, driven by the need to overcome obstacles to trade caused by the fragmentation of political authority. Between the 14th and the 19th centuries, a series of coinage unions were set up in the German speaking world, which served as models for the Latin and Scandinavian monetary unions in 1865 and 1872. With the growing size of participating states and the transformation of money, thanks to the end of bimetallism and the wider use of bank notes and deposits, the objectives and the practical management of monetary unions became more complex and more political. Monetary union became strictly associated with European federalism and required new common institutions after the end of the classical metallic standards in 1914.