ABSTRACT
The contribution given to the debate on the establishment of the European Monetary System (EMS) by the Governor of the Bank of England, Gordon Richardson, was negligible. Monetarist policies represented the City's preferred set of macroeconomic policies, as public declarations by brokers and banks' officials in the debate over the making of the EMS clearly demonstrate. It was exactly the widespread feeling that the government's policy of keeping its options open on the EMS issue was fairly disingenuous, that restrained the political debate within the governing party from taking off. The Committee agreed with the government the conditions for the UK to join the new fixed rate system in Europe. Yet, the conditions required by the British government to enter the new European monetary arrangements were clear even before the Bremen meeting in which the Franco-German scheme was made public, and underwent only slight changes with the evolution of the negotiations.
