Alternative Routes to Monetary Integration in the British Economic and Political Debate (1989-91)

In 1989, the Delors Report pushed the accelerator on European economic and monetary integration, setting the calendar for a three-steps process aiming at a single currency. The British Government tried to hinder this goal, casting into the scientific debate and political negotiations alternative plans, first based on currency competition, later on the issuance of a parallel currency (the “hard-ecu” proposal). The aim of this work is to reconstruct the theoretical framework in which such debates took place in Britain, both at a scientific level and in the political arena.