Les enjeux de l'Europe

The Stakes of European Integration By eliminating exchange rate uncertainty and achieving a unified European market, the single currency is an important step in the transition from the nation states of the nineteenth century to continental states. But along the steep path which leads to the common currency, the constraints become more acute and reduce the already narrow margins for national policies. The turbulent events which recently disturbed the EMS suggest that Europe is ahead in rhetoric but behind in action: words — concerted policies, economic and monetary union, coordination, solidarity — and facts — financing the reunification, determining interest rates — are diverging. To avoid the problem that one country's growth is achieved to the detriment of another's, a nominal anchor should be found: first, the EMS should be reconstructed, and then the exchange rate between the major currencies — the ECU, the dollar and the yen — should be controlled, so that a logic of growth may substitute for a logic of market shares.