The Euro in the International Financial Architecture

The procedures governing exchange rate policy among EU members in the early 1990s, whilst largely unwritten, provided convergence and cohesion across the region. Suitably adapted, this ERM code of conduct might help developing, emerging and transition countries face the challenge of globalisation. The perspective on international financial architecture proposed in this paper assumes that the same forms of peer pressure that brought about the euro will also sustain the required institutional change outside Europe. Nevertheless, the euro is an enabling reform that calls for additional structural adjustment. Structural reforms are needed to enhance the potential of the euro as a world currency and also the competitiveness of European firms. The European common good notwithstanding, institutions of global economic and financial governance, helped afflicted countries recover from financial crises in 1997–1999. Regional and global mechanisms for multilateral surveillance must be complements, not substitutes