'A single currency for Europe is a good thing and the sooner the UK joins the Euro, the better.' Do you agree?

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject Economics - Monetary theory and policy, grade: 1,0, University of Northampton, course: European Policy Issues, 15 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: On 1.January 1999 the European single currency, the Euro, was officially introduced. At that point eleven member states wanted to be a part of this significant leap and fulfilled the necessary criteria determined by the Growth & Stability-Pact (GSP) in 1997. Greece as the twelfth member joined in 2001. On 1.January 2002 the Euro was distributed and became the single currency for the partaking countries. This date marked only the final step in a long history of desire for a fixed exchange rate system and a monetary union within Europe - with a single currency as the summit of this ambition. In this essay I want to analyse if a single currency is a good thing for the EU and what the drawbacks are respectively. Later I will deal with the question if the UK should join the Euro soon - if at all. ...