Op 20 december 2008 is in het zakenweekblad FEM een artikel verschenen over de rol van de euro tijdens de huidige economische crisis. Daarin leggen vooraanstaande economen uit waarom Europa blij mag zijn dat de euro er is. Zonder die munt was het economische drama veel erger geweest. Download hier het artikel (in pdf).
Dit is de tekst van mijn open brief die ik op 19 juni 2009 gestuurd heb naar het weekblad The Economist, naar aanleiding van hun special report over de eurozone.
Dear Sir,
I have enjoyed reading your special report on the euro area in The Economist (June 13th-19th 2009). As a monetary economist myself I have followed the work towards a monetary union in Europe very closely.
In your report, you correctly state that the idea of a single moneay in Europe goes a long way back. Sadly, you then mention Jacques Rueff and his words from 1950s. The idea was however mentioned decades before that, by a German statesman (and Nobel laureate) Gustaf Stresseman. In 1929, speaking in New York before the representatives of countries within a body that would emerge as United Nations later, he asked the question ‘where is the European currency and a European stamp?’ He went on to say that those things will have to come. The stamp is nowhere to be seen, but ‘his’ currency is a fact of life now.
I do hope the euro will live forever, but, sadly, I am not so sure about it as you are. It is a shame that you write that ‘that (euro area collapsing or some members leaving it) kind of thinking is found mostly among those who were doubtful that the euro would ever get off the ground in the first place’. That is too simplistic and above all incorrect. Various pro-euro economic think tanks, such as the Centre for European Reform, and prominent economists such as Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, have not dismissed that scenario. You could hardly argue that the CER and Mr. Rogoff were ‘amongst those who were doubtful that the euro would come off the ground in the first palce’.
You conclude that the fact that many European nations are rushing to join the euro area is a vote of confidence. You could also compare it with a walker in the New Zealand Alps who finds himself in the midst of a severe storm. Just ahead is a very damaged house-like structure. He will run to it fast, but just to hide himself. It will hardly be a place where he would like to stay after the storm calms.
The creation of the euro was a milestone. It was also an example of the fact that nothing is absurd. Just as a scenario that, perhaps somewhere in the distant future one or more members of the euro area will choose, for
whatever reason, to leave the euro. For years to come the cost / benefit analysis will show, as was the case in the last 15 years, that costs are much, much lower than the benefits of sharing one currency with other
nations. That analysis, however, could change.
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