In light of the recent economic crisis, this paper examines how economic conditions shape public attitudes toward the European Union’s single currency, the euro. We argue that attitudes towards the euro are shaped by both utilitarian and symbolic concerns, but that economic insecurity is a key...

When the Maastricht Treaty on European Union was finally ratified in 1993, many EU observers and participants expressed serious doubts that economic and monetary union (EMU) would ever take place. Nevertheless, five years later EMU took flight, on 1 January 1999, as planned. It is this puzzle...