European Economic and Monetary Union

Abstract

In a book entitled ‘UK Monetary Policy — the challenge for the 1990s’ a chapter on European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is probably the one which should attract the most attention. For, in a Europe with a free internal market in goods and services, no control on the free flow of capital between member countries and either rigidly locked exchange rates between countries or a single currency, then there would be no role for an independent monetary policy in the UK. Rather, the level of interest rates in the UK would be equal to the level in the rest of the European Community. In this light, the likely progress towards economic and monetary union in Europe is worthy of careful consideration. If monetary union were achieved during the 1990s, then it would ensure that the vast majority of this book would become redundant.