Quiet triumph of the euro quells continental bickering

And let us now praise the success of the euro. What success, you ask?

And let us now praise the success of the euro. What success, you ask?

The currency was launched three years ago at a triumphalist $1.17 to the euro. Ten days before euro notes and coins appear, the single European currency is marooned at about 90 cents.The pre-launch boasts of some Europeans – "the days of dollar supremacy are over" – were misplaced. But the health of a currency should be judged also on stability, inflation, growth and job-creation.

As well, one should look at the euro's capacity to square the circle of so many different economies and cultures, without debilitating quarrels. From this point of view the euro has been a quiet – and all the more impressive for being quiet – triumph.

Many commentators said that placing, say, the German and Italian economies in one monetary straitjacket was an invitation to disaster. One learned book said that the euro would lead to a new Franco-German war.

Not only the Eurosceptics were sceptical. A famous European politician said early in 1995: "It's no problem for me to support a single European currency because I know it will never happen." That was Jacques Chirac, just before he became the President of France.

In the event, the euro has not been a subject of constant bickering, except in Britain, which is outside euroland. For most of the three years since the euro's creation, the euroland countries have had steady growth, falling unemployment and low inflation.

There has been no serious internal dissension against the euro's existence and few arguments about its management by the European Central Bank. This success can be attributed to the efforts to clean up public finances to meet the entry rules for the single currency. One of the paradoxes about British Eurosceptic contempt for the euro is the failure to recognise the "Thatcherist" influence of the euro within euroland.

The UK economy has matched, and is now outperforming, the economies of the eurozone. There is no clear case yet that Britain is losing anything through its years of non-membership.

In both the times of Asian bust and American boom and, now, American bust, the euro has performed the task it was created for: it has prevented the vicissitudes of the world economy from causing disruptive divergences between European currencies and economies.

The masters of the money universe may start to take the euro more seriously when it comes into people's pockets – but not much. While continental economies remain committed to high taxation and state spending, the euro will probably remain weak against the dollar. But, as a criticism, this is akin to complaining that the central heating is not working because it is cold in the garden.