The price of the euro

In February 1997 70 Dutch economists surprised politicians and the press with their unexpected publication of a statement severely criticizing the euro project from a left perspective. In addition, on the eve of the European Union Summit in Amsterdam in June 1997, an Open Letter echoing the same criticisms of the euro project was signed by over 330 European economists from 14 EU member states and was published in newspapers all over Europe.

Until recently very few people in the Netherlands had doubts about the advantages of the euro. But under the impact of the debates about the economists' appeal, the countersummit during the EU summit in June 1997 in Amsterdam, and the Amsterdam demonstration of 50,000 people during this same EU summit, at the end of the European Marches Against Poverty, Unemployment and Social Exclusion, this has changed quite a bit. The latest opinion polls show that a big minority of the Dutch is opposed to the euro, and that as much as 75 percent of the population wants to be allowed to have a say in the introduction of the euro, by referendum.

To further stimulate debates about and opposition to the euro project, the three initiators of the Dutch and European economists' appeals, Geert Reuten, Kees Vendrik and IIRE then-Co-Director Robert Went, edited a book with contributions from fifteen Dutch economists about the negative consequences of the euro for among other things democracy, women, the environment, social security, employment, job security and the public sector. De prijs van de euro (The Price of the Euro) was published on the day the European Monetary Institute and European Commission published their reports about which countries qualify for participation in the euro project. Although several reactions argued that the book was too late, there were a number of positive reviews in daily newspapers, while the book was discussed broadly on national radio and in some specially organized public meetings. The economic orthodoxy in the Netherlands behind the European Monetary Union has never been quite as secure since.