Sniffing the breeze

摘要

Since the launch of the euro on January 1st, Denmark and Sweden have been thinking harder about whether to adopt it, and even Norway is interested. Were the Danes and Swedes wise to shun the euro? They are asking themselves that question ever more insistently, and even the Norwegians are wondering aloud whether they are sensible to stay out of the European Union altogether. Why the change? For one thing, the Scandinavians have noted how much more stable the Finnish markka, which is in the euro-club, has been against their own currencies during the past half-year of global turbulence. And in the past two months the Finns have been loudly congratulating themselves on joining the euro in the first group of 11 countries.