With the creation of a single European currency, the dollar will have its first real competitor since it surpassed the pound sterling as the globe's dominant currency. As much as $1 trillion of international investment may shift from dollars to euros. The political impact of the euro will be just as great. Europe could try to export its high unemployment by undervaluing the euro's initial exchange rate. Protectionist battles could break out. The euro's arrival need not cause instability in world markets, but it will probably cause volatility. A smooth transition to a stable dollar and euro system will require a quantum leap in transatlantic cooperation.
C. Fred Bergsten is Director of the Institute for International Economics. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs from 1977 to 1981 and Assistant to the National Security Council for International Economic Affairs from 1969 to 1971.
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With the EU's addition of ten new members and a likely slowdown in U.S. productivity growth, Europe has a chance to overtake the U.S. economy. To actually do so, however, it must boost its competitiveness with some much-needed reforms.
US economic problems require defence spending cuts, since civilian programmes cannot be cut nor taxes raised, and these issues thus have a geopolitical dimension. Europe must therefore assume primary responsibility for its own defence, thus "sustaining the Pax Americana from which all have profited so handsomely".
As part of this effort, conversations have been started in Brussels, on the initiative of the Spanish Government, in order to study the problems faced by the Spanish economy as a result of the operation of the Common Market. On February 9 last, the E.E.C. authorities presented a questionnaire to the Spanish Government asking specifically about important aspects of the relations between the Six and Spain which had been studied in a Spanish report of December 9, 1964. The Spanish Government's answer to the questionnaire was handed to the E.E.C. in June.
