"We must stress that the euro has been beneficial to the European Union because, otherwise, in this context of international turmoil, every country would have to devalue their currencies"
About this Quote
Raffarin is selling the euro not as a romantic peace project but as crisis insurance: a mechanism that removes a tempting, destructive lever from national hands. The line is built around a counterfactual threat - "otherwise" - that casts currency devaluation as the default panic move in "international turmoil". He’s not praising shared identity; he’s warning against competitive retreat.
The specific intent is managerial and defensive. By stressing "beneficial", Raffarin anticipates skepticism in a France that has long been ambivalent about surrendering monetary sovereignty. He frames the single currency as a guardrail: if each country still had its own money, leaders would race to devalue to protect exports, shifting pain onto neighbors and triggering a spiral of retaliation. The euro, in this telling, forces discipline by making that move impossible.
The subtext is equally political. Devaluation is portrayed as both economically risky and morally suspect - a kind of stealth policy that can look like relief while quietly eroding savings and trust. Calling it something countries "would have to" do absolves governments of bad instincts by blaming the system; the euro becomes the adult in the room, preventing a group of anxious states from acting on impulse.
Context matters: this is post-Maastricht, in an era when globalization, currency speculation, and emerging-market crises made exchange-rate instability feel contagious. Raffarin’s argument taps a familiar European fear: not collapse in a blaze, but fragmentation by a thousand emergency measures. The euro’s virtue, he implies, is less prosperity than restraint.
The specific intent is managerial and defensive. By stressing "beneficial", Raffarin anticipates skepticism in a France that has long been ambivalent about surrendering monetary sovereignty. He frames the single currency as a guardrail: if each country still had its own money, leaders would race to devalue to protect exports, shifting pain onto neighbors and triggering a spiral of retaliation. The euro, in this telling, forces discipline by making that move impossible.
The subtext is equally political. Devaluation is portrayed as both economically risky and morally suspect - a kind of stealth policy that can look like relief while quietly eroding savings and trust. Calling it something countries "would have to" do absolves governments of bad instincts by blaming the system; the euro becomes the adult in the room, preventing a group of anxious states from acting on impulse.
Context matters: this is post-Maastricht, in an era when globalization, currency speculation, and emerging-market crises made exchange-rate instability feel contagious. Raffarin’s argument taps a familiar European fear: not collapse in a blaze, but fragmentation by a thousand emergency measures. The euro’s virtue, he implies, is less prosperity than restraint.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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