The European Commission based in Brussels, indeed, spends a small fraction of the total spent by governments in the member countries. They, not the European Union's bureaucracies, are the important political entities. Moreover, regulation of industrial and employment practices is more extensive than in the United States, and differs far more from country to country than from American state to American state. As a result, wages and prices in Europe are more rigid, and labour less mobile. In those circumstances, flexible exchange rates provide an extremely useful adjustment mechanism.

If one country is affected by negative shocks that call for, say, lower wages relative to other countries, that can be achieved by a change in one price, the exchange rate, rather than by requiring changes in thousands on thousands of separate wage rates, or the emigration of labour. The hardships imposed on France by its "franc fort" policy illustrate the cost of a politically inspired determination not to use the exchange rate to adjust to the impact of German unification. Britain's economic growth after it abandoned the European Exchange Rate Mechanism a few years ago to refloat the pound illustrates the effectiveness of the exchange rate as an adjustment mechanism.

Proponents of the "Euro" often cite the gold standard era from 1879 to 1914 as demonstrating the benefits of a common currency. But the gold standard also had its costs. The period was characterized by declining prices from 1879 to 1896, rising prices thereafter, and sharp fluctuations within each period, especially severe in the 1890s. The standard was viable only because governments were small (spending in the neighborhood of 10 per cent of the national income rather than 50 or more per cent as now), prices and wages were highly flexible, and the public was willing to tolerate, or had no way to moderate, wide swings in output and employment. Take away the rose-colored glasses and it was hardly a period or a system to emulate.

As of today, a subgroup of the European Union -- perhaps Germany, the Benelux countries, and Austria -- come closer to satisfying the conditions favorable to a common currency than does the EU as a whole. And they currently have the equivalent of a common currency. Austria and the Benelux three have, to all intents and purposes, linked their currencies to the Deutschmark. However, these countries still retain their central banks and hence can break the link at will. Any country that wishes to link to the Deutschmark more firmly can do so on its own, simply by replacing its central bank with a currency board, as some countries (such as Estonia) outside the EU have done.

The drive for the Euro has been motivated by politics not economics. The aim has been to link Germany and France so closely as to make a future European war impossible, and to set the stage for a federal United States of Europe. I believe that adoption of the Euro would have the opposite effect. It would exacerbate political tensions by converting divergent shocks that could have been readily accommodated by exchange rate changes into divisive political issues. Political unity can pave the way for monetary unity. Monetary unity imposed under unfavorable conditions will prove a barrier to the achievement of political unity.

The late Milton Friedman was professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a fellow at the Hoover Instituion at Stanford. This article was first published August 28, 1997.

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