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With euro bills and coins now circulating across much ofEurope, theEuropean Monetary Union is fully in place. The post-World War ⅡEuropean leaders’ dream of an economically and politically unified continent is one large step closer to realization, and membership in the monetary union could easily grow to 20 or more countries from the current 12 as the largeEuropean Union expands to the east.
A、fully operationalEuropean Monetary Union does not come, however, with a guarantee of success. There is one enormous problem: This union creates a single monetary policy for group of quite different national economies that often experience divergent business-cycle patterns.
As long as business-cycle conditions differ significantly amongEuropean Monetary Union countries, there is no way for the central bank’s policies to avoid creating serious problems for some members. The patterns of economic ups and downs remain far more diverse in theEuropean Monetary Union countries, and it is not clear that this will change soon. The designers of the monetary union thought that the demand of a single monetary policy, combined with free trade a mong the members, would cause cyclical conditions to converge quickly, producing a unified group of economies.
A、1997 agreement also limits the power of the individual nations in theEuropean Monetary Union to use government spending or tax cuts to ease national downturns. They can be fined if they run budget deficits of more than 3 percent of their gross domestic products. No fines have been levied yet, but the threat is there.
Even if the economies of the originalEuropean Monetary Union members become more similar in their cyclical behavior, it will take far longer for the convergence to include the new member nations expected to come in within the next 10 or 15 years. The chances for consensus on the GoverningCouncil, however thin now, will become far more distant with more members representing divergent national economies.And the larger nations, like Germany, France and Italy, might well resent the power of representatives from much smaller nations to outvote them on monetary policy.
All of this does not mean that theEuropean Monetary Union is likely to fail.But clearly the arrival of the euro as the standard currency does net guarantee the union’s success.
According to Para 1, which of the following is true
A、The euro has become exclusively universal currency now.
B．The dream of a unifiedEuropean union has become a reality.
C．TheEuropean Monetary Union is affiliated to theEuropean Onion.
D．There are 20 member nations in theEuropean Monetary Union.