Beyond 2008: Coping with the Crisis

Abstract

In a series of speeches in 2006 and 2007, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB) Mr Jean-Claud Trichet was at pains to emphasise the positive features of the single currency. He praised growing financial integration as contributing to diversifying and sharing risks and offsetting future economic shocks. He described the single currency as ‘the most advanced feature of European unity and in many ways its emblem’ (cited in Marsh, 2011:241).