Bert Rürup: A common currency alone is not enough
Europe's political and economic sovereignty requires more than just a central bank and monetary stability. It needs a capital market of global significance and a European global currency.
"The introduction of the euro is an unavoidable necessity," Chancellor Helmut Kohl declared in 1998, addressing the German people to quell widespread skepticism over the planned common currency. Prior, Alan Greenspan, former head of the US Federal Reserve, had forecasted, "The euro will come, but it will not endure." Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman dubbed the euro the "triumph of a symbol over substance."
Both proved to be mistaken. A quarter-century since its inception, the euro now serves as legal tender in 21 European nations and functions de facto as a secondary currency in many others, making it the second-most important currency in the world. Despite this, a significant gap persists between the euro and the US dollar: roughly one-fifth of global currency reserves are held in euros, while the dollar still accounts for more than half.
Likewise, the euro dominates international bond trading, global trade, commodity financing, international payments, and financial markets, leaving the US dollar as the dominant currency.
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