So today I want to make some comments from a Reserve Bank perspective. But at the very outset I want to make it clear that any decision to abandon our own currency is fundamentally a political issue.
Currency unions are generally formed as part of a larger strategic push to integrate the countries entering the currency union, often in combination with free trade agreements, harmonisation of legal standards, and liberalised migration laws. Viewed in this way, entering a currency union is a major foreign policy decision, and thus a matter for elected politicians.