The Delors Report, and the decisions taken by the EC Council of Ministers in June and December 1989, lay out a clear, but very slow process towards monetary unification in Europe. Until the start of Stage II – that is not before 1993 – realignments of EMS central parities will remain possible, and exchange-rate bands will not be reduced below the current 2.25% margins. The transition to irrevocably fixed parities is not foreseen before the start of Stage III – that is, not before 1996. A single currency shines high above the horizon, but its distance is indeed astronomical – not before the end of the decade.

Dornbuch challenges the EC blueprint, arguing that Europe can only lose from holding up the process of monetary unification: ‘In most European countries monetary policy has become almost powerless. […] Once the ability to conduct any kind of independent monetary policy is far gone, one can ask why countries would not go ahead and abandon the pretence altogether.’ The cost of not doing so is an unnecessary high tax burden. This is because, as long as currencies are allowed to fluctuate in bands, the bands are not irrevocably fixed, interest rates in ‘weak-currency’ countries – e.g. Ireland and Italy – are higher than they would be if their exchange rates were irrevocably linked to the Deutsche mark without any margin. Since these countries are also those suffering from large budget deficits and exceptionally high public debt levels, a prolonged transition will have long-lasting consequences: it will keep the cost of debt service unnecessarily high, and will thus require an even higher tax burden in the future.