This paper asks how EMU will affect foreign-exchange markets, the demands for various key currencies, the behaviour of exchanges rates among them, and policy coordination. The advent of the Ecu as the single currency of the EC may reduce the vehicle role of the dollar in foreign-exchange markets. Yet the share of the Ecu in global reserves may be lower initially than the sum of the shares of the present EC currencies. The private demand for Ecu, domestic and foreign, may also be smaller initially than the demands for the present EC currencies. By helping to unify EC capital markets, however, advent of the Ecu may raise the flow demand for Ecu-denominated claims, causing the Ecu to appreciate in the early years of EMU. Finally, EMU may not help Europe to speak with one voice in international negotiations and may thus interfere with policy coordination.

To answer the question under what conditions during the transition to EMU will firms choose the Ecu as their currency for transactions, the paper develops a simple model of a firm’s choice of currency for pricing, invoicing and receiving payments for its product-its transactions currency. The focus of the model is the presence of network externalities derived from use of the same currency by others. The model points up the fallacy of focusing only on relative inflation performances of currencies when judging their likely adoption for transactions purposes.

The present paper shows that with increasing economic integration the notion of nominal convergence is changing with price convergence more easily achievable, convergence of cost trends becoming more important and convergence of current account balances less essential. Convergence in supply conditions will crucially determine future employment opportunities. The issue of credibility of the supply performance seems to be just as important as the more conventionally accepted issue of macro-economic credibility. Policies which, enhance the supply-side flexibility of EC economies would reduce the temptation to use discretionary policies to influence regional output and employment. Flexibility of relative price and wages would also by itself temper the need for demand management, facilitate adjustment to both temporary and permanent shocks and reduce the need for an intra-EC transfer mechanism. However, the reform of economic structures so as to increase flexibility will itself constitute a shock. Structural reforms may thus themselves be a source of short-term déstabilisation of aggregate demand, prices and employment. Deciding whether or not anticyclical fiscal responses (which may be equivalent to capital controls) are appropriate in such circumstances is not straightforward.

In this paper we compare the interregional and international degree of real exchange rate variability of a number of EMS-countries. This allows us to gain insights into the costs of a monetary union. Our major conclusion is that a monetary union among all EMS members would be costly for some of them if it were instituted today. We also find that a monetary union among a «hard-core» of EMS-countries (Benelux, Germany, Denmark) would not involve major costs.

We build a multi-sector model with wage bargaining and imperfect competition to analyse the links between wage interdependence and competitiveness. Quantity constraints together with union power, firm market power and wage externalities play a significant role in the determination of competitiveness and in the transmission of shocks among sectors. This is verified by an empirical study on Belgian data. We identify leading sectors in wage formation and evaluate the effect of sector-specific shocks on the competitiveness of the other sectors.

This paper is divided into three main sections. The first considers the implications of the Maastricht treaty for the external economic dimension, concentrating mainly on the inter-relationships between, and allocations of responsibility for, the decisions within the EC on the main policy issues, monetary policy, the exchange rate regime and fiscal policy. The second section considers the non-strategic external economic implications of EMU and the move to a single currency, the Ecu, issues such as the effects on trade finance, reserves, seigniorage and the net external demand for Ecu assets. The third section discusses how the establishment of EMU may affect the workings of the world economy, the exchange rate regime and coordination, such as it may be, among the main players.

The Maasstricht Treaty on EMU has generally been hailed as “a victory for the Ecu”. This is a misinterpretation. Maastricht is a victory for the EMU. EMU does not require the actual Ecu, and the actual Ecu did not receive a boost from the decision to call the future single currency “Ecu” rather than “Euromark”. Maasstricht has not nailed down the actual Ecu’s future and has left some uncertainties. Finally, it is not certain that the future Ecu will be at least as “hard” as the Deutschemark. The Maastricht Treaty went as far as practically possible in anchoring the Ecu’s stability. But performance will depend on factors outside of the Treaty’s scope.