Highlighting that France and Germany held largely contradicting hopes and aspirations for Europe's common currency, this paper analyzes how the resulting euro contradiction conditioned the ongoing euro crisis as well as current strategies to resolve it. While Germany generally prevailed in...

At the start of 1999, a new policy regime was introduced in Europe that included the launch of the euro and the establishment of a centralized control over monetary policy common to the eleven European Union (EU) countries that decided to participate.(2) The objective of this paper is to assess...

This brief assesses the experiences of Europe's policy regime in the two years since the introduction of the euro in 1999, particularly the performance of the European Central Bank (ECB), the institution in charge of conducting monetary policy for the euro area. Conventional accounts of European...