But for this to work, the security precautions envisaged by the founding fathers to protect the stability of the single currency need to actually function: member states committed to keep their finances on a sound footing and prohibited central banks from resorting to the printing presses to help out ailing governments.
In addition, the member states inserted contractual clauses ruling out the possibility of mutual bailouts. A set of convergence criteria was created to ensure that only those countries whose economies were ready could join monetary union. In other words, they were supposed to be economically and fiscally healthy.