ABSTRACT
After the failed attempt at Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) in the 1970s and despite the successes of the European Monetary System (EMS) in the 1980s, monetary union in the (European Union) EU appeared to be a remote prospect up to the late 1980s. That it moved to the top of the agenda, with the Delors report eventually precipitating the timetables and conditions for full monetary union in the Treaty of European Union (the Maastricht Treaty), is testament to the rapid advance in the integration process in the few years up to late in 1992. Despite the problems that the EMU process has encountered since then, and despite the recent crises in the global economy, the impressive political momentum that developed for actually bringing about this historically momentous development has actually resulted in the launch of a single currency among eleven EU states in 1999, the notes and coins themselves being introduced in 2002. Others, including the UK, are likely to join around that time or soon after.
