THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EURO IN THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY SYSTEM

摘要

It is a great pleasure for me to be here and I thank you, Robert Isaak, for that wonderful introduction; it was very interesting. I am of course going to talk about the euro, but by way of preface, I will tell you about some of my recent journeys. Two weeks ago I was in Spain at the Euro Forum Conference in the El Escorial Palace outside Madrid, the splendid mausoleum/palace/monastery built by Philip Ⅱ of Spain to celebrate the occasion of his victory in the Battle of San Quentin on St. Laurence's Day in 1557. This was a conference dedicated to the occasion of the Spanish presidency of the European Union, a report of progress on past commitments and on the challenges ahead. The Lisbon Summit Conference in March 2000, spearhead-ed by Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK and President Jose Aznar of Spain, set the goals of improving the employment performance of the EU and making it the most competitive area in the world by the year 2010.