This is largely because of our difficulty in dealing with the flow on impact of valuation losses from falling bond prizes on our profit at year end. Our valuation dilemma arose because of the accounting classification of our bond holding. While we had classified these as “held for trading” and we were marking to market, we were in fact holding these bonds to maturity.
Economic and monetary union was expected: •  to complete the single market and to create an European area of monetary and financial stability (stability union);  •  to act as a catalyst for further political integration and economic structural reforms; and  •  at least for some (non-german) politicians: to counterbalance the currency dominance of the US dollar by means of the euro.