| Summary/Abstract |
Within a year of the publication in 1987 of my historical account of the shifting priorities in Europe’s monetary and financial integration, dramatic first steps in a process of major changes in both areas were taken: In June 1988, the then 12 members states of the European Economic Community committed themselves to removing the residual controls on capital flows within a short time scale. And, in that same month, the European Council of Heads of State and Governments “confirmed the objective of progressive realization of economic and monetary union” and set up a committee, largely composed of national central bank governors, with Jacques Delors, then President of the European Commission as Chairman. The “Delors Report” of 1989 formed a stepping stone to the Maastricht Treaty, adopted at the end of 1991, and to the start of a common currency for 11 member states only seven years later. The scope and the speed of the process came as a major surprise, even to those most convinced of its net benefits, among whom this author has to be counted. Why did this strong momentum develop? And, in retrospect, would a more steady pace have been preferable?
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