see my comment €euro elswhere on this site

@ Kapitein Andre
"If Europeans want socio-political unity": I think this is the crucial question and the answer is NO. Europeans want to live 'closer' together, have things adjusted to changing patterns in life (vacations abroad, export/import, delocation of businesses etc) but they do not want Europe to dictate how they should live. So, I think most people agree with European economics but not with European politics.

There is no doubt in my mind that sooner or later there is going to be also European politics. But I think it is going to be rather later than sooner. Right now politicians are trying to force European politics onto the EU people with adverse consequences. Somewhere else I wrote: first economics and then maybe politics because there is no politics without economics. Let us first try to figure out how to work together and afterwards how to live together. Clearly, Europeans are not ready to live together.

MarcFrans did not agree with my statement concerning first economics and then politics. Indeed politics can smoothen the path for economics via different policies. In this sense a political EU can play a role in making the economic life of its people and businesses easier. However, the EU people have still a long way to go before they are ready for any further steps.

I live in a town which used to have its own dialect which was barely understood in the next town, seven kilometers further on. Over the years this dialect has disappeared. Twenty years ago, most people of my town spent their entire lives in a 15 - 20 km radius. People told me, went they first had to leave this circle because of work they cried, tears running down their faces.

All this has changed in very short time. I live and work in several countries. My spoken language is changing: although I am Flemish, some people think I am Dutch because of my accent (I work mostly in the Netherlands). When I am in Paris, people think I am American because I speak French with an American accent.

I consider myself as an oddity. However, cultures and countries are changing. These changes favour and are fed by internationalisation. EU economics (or should I say 'trade') will internationalize to such a degree that EU politics will be absolutely necessary. In the lives of my friends and also mine, borders fade. We are more and more living in networks than in countries. These networks span continents. Politics used to be based at the country level. And it will stay like this for a long time. But ways of life are changing, and so will politics. I hope these political changing will be done in small steps and not as it is done right now.

In most of history economics pushes politics. When politics start pushing economics there is usually a disastrous consequence or failure. Right now in the EU, politics are pushing economics more than the other way around. This is what is being resented by the EU population. They don't vote against more economics or against the EU, they vote against this mogol infringing on their lives. And they are not ready for it. Not for any time soon. But the course of change will not be changed.

@ Bob Doney:

I hope you can understand from the above that I lead a life somewhat different from yours. My life is made easier with the euro. I prefer not to go back. I do not live as much in a country anymore. I live in a network. I guess people have always lived in a network. However, networks used to be based partially on national borders. This is not the case for me anymore. So I don't have the 'red tape' anymore of having different currencies in my wallet, the 'red tape' connected to international financial transactions, the 'red tape' connected to comparison of the prices of products in different countries, etc. A currency is a means to come to a transaction. A certain currency as goal (whether it is the pound, dollar, guilder, franc, dinar) has absolutely no value to me. Comfort has value to me. If tomorrow the whole of Europe will be using the British pound, that's fine for me.

As during my holidays in England, I must admit that British  English is far more difficult (sophisticated?) than American English. In the States, I understand most people first time, but in England I regularly have to ask to repeat what they said - often three times and sometimes embarassing.

Here too: I didn't know it was only the Americans who say:"Go figure", but what it means has always been pretty clear to me. "A distinct case of the Wobbles"on the other hand, I have no clue...

The titular phrase evokes the German issuance of Notgeld (money of necessity) by political subdivisions during the German inflation of the Weimar Republic. These notes have long been collectibles.

I'd love to know in what areas of life there is less red tape because of the Euro.

Irrespective of supranational ambitions and visions, the European Union was and is, in essence, an economic bloc; the only question that remains as to its future is, will this bloc resemble NAFTA or COMECON?

The Euro resulted in greater efficiency between states which accepted the currency and between those states and their international trading partners e.g. less government red tape, easier financial transactions, etc. Furthermore, a single currency can only benefit an economic bloc, and indeed many have posited that Canada and Mexico should adopt the US dollar. However, there are two fundamental problems with the Euro: (1) the Euro was more of a successor to the Deutschmark, and its initial valuation reflected Germany's economic leadership of the European Union (especially as it provides the lion's share of funding), rather than the prevailing economic conditions of the whole i.e. varying economic development nationally and regionally and varying types of economies; and (2), the European Central Bank is unaccountable to the citizens of the EU member states and its macroeconomic policies often conflict with national interests.

Is the Euro inherently a failure? No. The single currency is a failure because to properly implement it with a Central Bank that both ignores special interests (e.g. regional and national) and is democratically accountable would require a single state. Unless Europeans are willing to merge into a multinational state, they are better off with their own currencies; unless the European Union engages in more direct democracy, the ECB included, the single currency merely acts to coerce the members of what was the EEC to become a state. For these same reasons, the Mexicans and Canadians would rather maintain NAFTA's as it is, trade disputes with the United States and all, rather than adopt the US dollar which is one step removed from total loss of sovereignty.

Certainly the former American Confederacy did not take kindly to its national currency being replaced by the dollar without consent, consultation, or compensation, yet the United States was evidently meant to become a single state. If Europeans want socio-political unity, than they must go through the growing pains of economic integration; if they do not, then why was the EEC scrapped?