An introduction of the new common currency in the Europe was announced on the first day of January 1999. At the first time, there were eleven countries, which decided to join the European Union (EU) and replace their own currency with a new one, the Euro. The Euro has been adopted as a official currency of the country members including Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. In order to be accepted to join the Euro, these countries had to agree with the agreement about the price stability, long-term interest rate, government budget deficits, total government debt, exchange rate stability, and central bank independence, which will discuss more specific in this essay.
At the beginning time of the Euro, there were four members of the EU still remained to do not support the Euro. http://wydawnictwa.wsfib.edu.pl/Polska_w_UE/Pszcz%F3%B3ka.pdf II. Body 1. Background of the Euro.
According to Szasz (1999), after the second World War, European politicians had a idea of European integration. In 1957, the treaty of Rome was signed by Belgium, France, West Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and the Netherland, and the European Economic Community was created. In 1969, the European Monetary Union (EMU) was formed by the European Community as a milestone in the whole process of monetary integration. Unfortunately, it did not succeed.
The year 1979 was one of the most important points on the process of monetary integration in Europe. The European Monetary System (EMS) whose cores are the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and the European Currency Unit (ECU) was created. In this system, a central rate was calculated and used to find out a grid of mutual central rate. The oscillation bands at 2.25% on the side of the central rate were set for the most currencies except some weak currencies