Europe | Europe's currency

Don't (even mention) delay

|BRUSSELS

CONSIDERING that talk of delaying the single currency is officially taboo, there has been an awful lot of it recently. This week the European Commission's president, Jacques Santer, and the French and German finance ministers all dismissed speculation that the date for launching the euro, January 1st 1999, might be put back. Inside the commission, officials speak darkly of an “Anglo-Saxon conspiracy” to stymie the onset of the euro. The Maastricht treaty, they assert, actually makes delay impossible.

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