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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.

He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.

In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.

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• EU euro 2002
  
• EU euro 2002, 2
  
• EU euro 2003
  
• EU euro 2006
  
• EU euro 2007
  

The history of the idea to coin a pan-European currency as a financial pillar of EU is relatively recent. In the Treaty of Rome (1957) that founded EU there was no mentioning of a common currency. More recently, the Single European Act (1986) and the Treaty on European Union (1992), founded the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and laid down the foundations for a single currency in Western Europe. Since January 1, 1999 the exchange rates between the participating currencies were definitively set and the Euro introduction thus became a matter of printing enough notes.

To keep the Euro strong, it has to be supported by unified financial policy in all participating countries. This means that they have to keep their annual budget deficits within 3 percent of their GDP. They also have to keep low their inflation. The institution that overlooks this unified financial policy is the European System of Central Banks, including the European Central Bank and the national central banks. It conducts common monetary policy in the Eurozone, setting the basic interest rates, conducting foreign exchange operations and managing the official foreign reserves of the member states.

In economic plan, the common currency makes EU much more interesting for the foreign investors, reducing the risks for their investments when transferring their funds from one member state to another. The market becomes bigger and the regional price misbalances are corrected easier when the consumers have common currency to measure the value of different goods and services.

But there are gains on the political front too. Europe from just a dream becomes a reality. When people from many different countries have one common currency they feel closer and build easier one common identity. This common identity is what lacked so much in Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. There were many to wish to impose their particular identity on their neighbors, but today the Europeans have a chance to do it without being subjugated by some foreign power. It's deplorable that after the Soviet Union has fallen the Europeans have chosen the United States as the enemy for building their common identity. The Euro was considered mainly as a counterweight to the US dollar. We can only hope that the Europeans will soon leave behind their childhood and will assume their bigger responsibilities, political and financial, resulting from their bigger role in the world affairs.

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