Sir: Nicholas Ridley overlooked, among other things, that Bundesbank president
Karl Otto POhl, on the eve of German monetary union, had spelled out the key difference between it and European monetary union — conceived as culminat- ing in a single (not, like the hard ecu parallel) currency run by an independent European central bank — by pointing out that, in the latter event, the deutschmark would ultimately be replaced, not ex- tended. And so, of course, would be the Bundesbank itself.
Only, after the consummation of Ger- man monetary union (on 1 July) perhaps
LETTERS
more than before, rest assured that that legitimately proud and powerful institution will abdicate only after it has made quite certain, in the interest of all concerned, that the single currency succeeding its own and others is left in equally reliable (ie, independent) hands.
On the European monetary front, Mr Ridley's prophecy was thus doomed before it was uttered.
W. Grey
12 Arden Road, London N3
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