Single currency: Time to think the unthinkable

Of course, senior EU politicians daren’t even think about it. Most of them still see Europe’s future in terms of the Maastricht treaty’s objectives. But as I argued in this column last month, it’s odds-on the timetable for European monetary union (Emu) will have to be put back. What happens to Europe then? Is it Armageddon, as German chancellor Helmut Kohl sometimes seems to suggest. I think not.

But my optimism depends on the EU’s single market surviving the demise of Emu.