It is important to emphasise that the internationalisation of the euro reflects a market driven process and is no goal of the common monetary policy. Thus, the acceptance of the euro in international markets is even more reassuring.
Despite these overall achievements, some have recently cast their doubts on the future of monetary integration in Europe in the face of heterogeneous developments at the level of member states. And here I can only repeat myself. This line of argument neglects the basic empirical facts. The divergence in national inflation rates and output growth rates has not increased with EMU.