Europe Made of Money

Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol

Description

A Europe Made of Money is a new history of the making of the European Monetary System (EMS), based on extensive archive research. Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol highlights two long-term processes in the monetary and economic negotiations in the decade leading up to the founding of the EMS in 1979. The first is a transnational learning process involving a powerful, networked European monetary elite that shaped a habit of cooperation among technocrats. The second stresses the importance of the European Council, which held regular meetings between heads of government beginning in 1974, giving EEC legitimacy to monetary initiatives that had previously involved semisecret and bilateral negotiations. The interaction of these two features changed the EMS from a fairly trivial piece of administrative business to a tremendously important political agreement. The inception of the EMS was greeted as one of the landmark achievements of regional cooperation, a major leap forward in the creation of a unified Europe. Yet Mourlon-Druol's account stresses that the EMS is much more than a success story of financial cooperation. The technical suggestions made by its architects reveal how state elites conceptualized the larger project of integration. And their monetary policy became a marker for the conception of European identity. The unveiling of the EMS, Mourlon-Druol concludes, represented the convergence of material interests and symbolic, identity-based concerns.

Sujets

• Economie gestion
• Monetary economics
• Western Europe
• Macroeconomics
• History of Europe

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801465932
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

AEUROPEMADE OF MONEY

Avolumeintheseries CornellStudiesinMoney editedbyEricHelleinerandJonathanKirshner

Alistoftitlesinthisseriesisavailableat www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

AEurope Madeof Money TheEmergenceoftheEuropean Monetary System

EmmanuelMourlonDruol

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 2012 by Cornell University

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,orparts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512EastStateStreet,Ithaca,NewYork14850.

First published 2012 by Cornell University Press Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data MourlonDruol, Emmanuel. A Europe made of money : the emergence of the European Monetary System / Emmanuel MourlonDruol.  p. cm. — (Cornell studies in money) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780801450839 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Monetary policy—European Economic Community countries. 2. European Monetary System (Organization)—History. I. Title. II. Series: Cornell studies in money.  HG930.5.M68 2012  332.4'94—dc23 2012005416

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Contents

ListofAbbreviations

Introduction:MultilevelGovernance,History, and Monetary Cooperation 1 Monetary Cooperation, 1945–1974:. European Background and Debates 2 . Shifting Away from the Werner Approach, May 1974–May 1975 3 .EMU off the Agenda? June 1975–June 1976 4 .Economic Rapprochement, Monetary Standstill, July 1976–June 1977 5 .Conflicting Options, July 1977–March 1978 6 .A Semisecret Negotiation, Late March–MidJuly 1978 7 .Chasing the Ghosts of Failed Negotiations, MidJuly–Late September 1978 8 . A False Start, October 1978–March 1979 Conclusions:TheEmergenceofaEuropeanBloc

Acknowledgments ANoteonSourcesCitedintheNotes Notes Sources Index

vii

1

15

30 65

99

132

163

196

228

261

283 285 287 337 349

Abbreviations

AAPD ACS AdsD AMAE AN ASBI BAK BB BdF BoE CAEF CADN CAP CDU CMA COREPER CSCE CSU DG DGSE DM EC ECB ECHA ECJ ECOFIN ECSC ECU EEC EIB EMCF EMS EMU EMUA

Akten zur Auswärtigen Politik der Bundesrepublik Deutschland Archivio centrale dello stato, Rome Archiv der sozialen Demokratie, Bonn Archives du ministère des affaires étrangères, La Courneuve Archives nationales, Paris or Fontainebleau Archivio storico della Banca d’Italia, Rome Bundesarchiv, Koblenz Bundesbank Archiv, Frankfurt Archives historiques de la Banque de France, Paris The Bank of England Archive, London Centre des archives économiques et financières, SavignyleTemple Centre des archives diplomatiques de Nantes common agricultural policy ChristlichDemokratische Union Deutschlands Council of Ministers Archives, Brussels Comité des Représentants Permanents Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe ChristlichSoziale Union DirectorateGeneral, European Commission Direction générale des services étrangers (Banque de France) deutsche mark European Community European Central Bank European Commission Historical Archives, Brussels European Court of Justice EEC Council of Economics and Finance Ministers European Coal and Steel Community European Currency Unit European Economic Community European Investment Bank European Monetary Cooperation Fund European Monetary System Economic and Monetary Union European Monetary Unit of Account

vii

viiiABBREVIATIONS

EPU EUA FDP FF GNP HAEU HSA IMF LECE MCA MTA MTFA NAI PAAA PS RPR SDR SGCI

SPD STMS TNA UA UCE UCME UDF UNICE ZBR

European Payments Union European Unit of Account Freie Demokratische Partei franc français gross national product Historical Archives of the European Union, Florence HelmutSchmidtArchiv International Monetary Fund European League for Economic Cooperation monetary compensatory amount Margaret Thatcher Archive mediumterm financial assistance The National Archives of Ireland, Dublin Das Politische Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin Parti socialiste Rassemblement pour la République Special Drawing Right Secrétariat général du Comité interministériel pour les questions de coopération économique européenne Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands shortterm monetary support The National Archives, Kew unit of account Unité de compte européenne Unité de compte monétaire européenne Union pour la démocratie française Union des industries de la Communauté européenne Zentralbankrat (Bundesbank)

Introduction

MultilevelGovernance,History, and Monetary Cooperation

SincetheWernerPlanadozenyearsagoandsincethedaysofthe snake, since the founding of the EMS in particular, different bodies and groups have done enormous preparatory work for further mon etary cooperation. This work resembles a hidden treasure: all the papers are written by monetary experts and for the use of monetary experts; they therefore hardly ever have reached the attention of the leaders or heads of state or government; in most cases they have not even been given full attention and full reading by finance ministers. —Helmut Schmidt

ThecreationoftheEuropeanMonetarySystem(EMS)istraditionallyconsid ered one of the landmarks of postwar Western European history. Many text books stress that it was an example of how European elites coped with global economic change. The advent of floating exchange rates, following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, was harmful for Western European economies, and the EMS constituted a European response. The EMS represented, indeed, the first serious attempt at reintroducing a semifixed exchange rate sys tem on a European basis. And most important, that European response would have a strong influence on the economic and social policies of many participat ing European countries from 1979 onward. The EMS would be an external con straint—lauded or criticized—for the domestic economic policy choices of many European governments. Further adding to the importance of the EMS, countless European policymakers would present it as the first necessary step on the road to economic and monetary union (EMU). The European Currency Unit (ECU), the argument goes, was the forerunner of the euro. Though both of these asser tions are certainly debatable, they do hint at one of Western Europe’s perennial problems: the need to stabilize monetary relations in a geographical zone where internal trade is intense. From the nineteenthcentury Latin Monetary Union to the presentday euro, organizing currency fluctuations within Europe has re mained a central issue for European policymakers.

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