A brief history of the euro from the Treaty of Maastricht in 1992 to the current financial and economic crisis.

History: The Euro

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/15549732/V001-0012-EN.srt

Euro banknotes - citizens of 12 countries  had them on 1 January 2002.

But it had taken 10 years of negotiation  for them to arrive in ATMs.

Foreign and Finance Ministers from the  12 states of the European Communities

signed the Treaty on European Union  in Maastricht.

The Maastricht Treaty anticipated  economic and monetary union.

Jean-Claude Juncker,  then Finance Minister of Luxembourg,

Now President of the Euro Group,  he's still proud of this Treaty.

I had the impression  we were preparing to do great things.

I was very reserved about the political  union aspect of the Maastricht Treaty,

But the economic and monetary part,  the EMU part,

The general economy of the text gave me  the feeling, after hard negotiations,

that we were moving  towards new horizons.

But the catalyst for the single currency  was German reunification.

The Americans, like us  and most Europeans, didn't believe in it.

thought we were incapable of succeeding  in this enormous challenge.

The single currency became real,  but not everyone can join the Eurozone.

Strict criteria based on  economic indicators have to be met,

including price stability,  meaning controlled inflation,

In addition, the national currency  must be stable for at least two years.

In 2007, Lithuania  failed to meet the criteria

which weren't, let's say,  scientifically based.

But they still had to style and make  secure these new banknotes and coins.

Yves-Thibault de Silguy, former European  Commissioner from 1995 to 1999,

was in charge of preparing  the move to the euro.

There were E's like this,  all sorts of things.

which I thought was good  for two reasons.

Firstly it reminded one slightly  of the dollar with the two bars.

It was also a nod to the logo for the yen.

Giving up national currencies  wasn't an easy job.

The British refused the euro  from the start.

Denmark and Sweden refused the single  currency several times in referenda.

When the Germans  gave up the Deutschmark,

they insisted on the independence  of the European Central Bank.

Its main task is to maintain  price stability in the Eurozone.

returns to the comments of Jacques  Delors, another father of the euro.

Economic and monetary union,  the structure for establishing the euro,

was unbalanced. He said  on the one hand monetary policy

will be federal and integrated  in the hands of the Central Bank,

and on the other hand the economic pillar  of this economic and monetary union

will continue to be largely based  on the policies of Member States

which must be coordinated. That  coordination was in the end quite loose.

10 years after its birth, the Eurozone  saw an unprecedented crisis:

economic crisis,  debt crisis in some Member States.

For Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the euro  helped to avoid an even worse crisis.

Without the euro, we would have had  speculation on currencies,

so we would have had  competitive devaluations.

We'd have had very high rises  in interest rates,

so we'd have had an economic crisis with  less growth and more unemployment.

In late 2010, the EU Council President  said the euro was in a survival crisis.

One of the fathers of the euro responds.

No, no. The euro will survive those  who predict its death.