By the Plaza Accord, struck in 1985, Tokyo was forced to appreciate the yen substantially in relation to the dollar, with the Deutsche Mark compelled to follow suit.

By 1987 the dollar had devalued to levels that were jeopardizing Wall Street . in the same year a G7 meeting was held in Paris at which American officials pushed the opposite way, towards a strengthening of the dollar. At that meeting, which is now known as the Louvre Accord, Washington bullied the Europeans into accepting coordinated efforts to strengthen the dollar.

put under pressure by the exigencies of its most powerful social groups

Lamont thus inherited Britain's place in the EMS-ERM fixed exchange system and tried to make the best of it, seeing it also as a bulwark for pushing down Britain's inflation rate

the European Union remained capable of promoting planification, code for looking after large French companies through bailouts

To fill this institutional lacuna, the Maastricht Treaty and its successor treaties created a panoply of non-credible rules to constrain states.

To fill this institutional lacuna, the Maastricht Treaty and its successor treaties created a panoply of non-credible rules to constrain states.

Given that the purpose of going through the palaver of re-creating a lost currency is to devalue it vis-a-vis the currency in people's hip pockets, leaving the euro is tantamount to announcing a major devaluation a year before it happens.

the labour market measures--known as the Hartz reforms--that the German Federal Republic enacted as soon as euro notes began to circulate. Implemented at a time of US-led growth, these reforms aimed at enhancing German exports and their competitiveness by making them cheaper through reducing German workers' average take-home pay significantly, both by cutting hourly wage rates and pushing large numbers of workers into so-called mini-jobs.

with every visitation by the troika, the dream of shared European prosperity was dealt another blow