"THOSE who have felt in their hearts that the single currency was becoming the wrong test for the success of the EU have, until recent weeks, been mainly silent. We felt perhaps that we spoke out we would give comfort to those whose aim is quite different - namely to reverse the processes of Europe, to win votes from xenophobia, to narrow our horizons back to 1935 or 1945."
No kidding!
The words are those of Douglas Hurd, the former British Foreign Secretary, in a long opinion article in yesterday's Financial Times. In it, he explains that because Britain has an opt out from the single currency it does not really have a right to call a halt to the project.
Nevertheless, he joins the throng of not so silent colleagues in calling for just that. Never has silence been so deafening.
The weekend press in Britain carried a series of major pieces which suggested that the €1999 timetable was now firmly off the rails and that the Commission was pre sparing contingency plans for delay. Not so, said an angry Commission spokesman on Monday. Others mutter darkly about "sabotage".
A senior Irish Commission source says there is genuinely no sense of "the jitters" about the timetable but some exasperation at the hurlers on the ditch, and that the technical preparations are going ahead full steam.
Undeterred, Mr Hurd's successor at the Foreign Office, Mr Malcolm Rifkind, according to British journalists the source of the original story at an unattributable briefing last Thursday, pursued his theme on Monday. There was now, he said, a fundamental "credibility gap" that member states had to address. How could they do that? he was asked, only to respond enigmatically with vague talk of the need for a common economic analysis.
This story, as they say, will run and run.
As the EU leaders have agreed that no decision will be taken on the initial participants until 1998, there are bound to be endless opportunities for mischief between now and then. And there is a real danger in Ireland, living in the shadow cast by the British media, of becoming overwhelmed and dragged down by our neighbour's Euro pessimism.
"Wishful thinking" was how Britain's senior Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, described the reports, and the British Chancellor, Kenneth Clarke, has done his level best to maintain his distance from them, stressing instead the need to keep up the good work of convergence.
On the European mainland of course perceptions are quite different. The problem lies in distinguishing between the fears expressed by those who wish the euro well and have genuine concerns, whether Jacques Delors, Valery Giscard d'Estaing or the Spanish Foreign Minister, Carlos Westerndorp (subsequently denied), and those who want to give it the kiss of death.
"Objective" and "well meant" advice from London should be taken with a liberal pinch of salt. But it can do real damage. As the German European Affairs Minister, Werner Hoyer, warned on Monday, there is a danger of talking the whole thing into the ground.
YESTERDAY the chairwoman of the European Parliament's Monetary Committee, Christa Randzio Plath, a leading German Social Democrat, described British calls for delay as "grossly irresponsible". She accepts there are problems, not least in persuading a sceptical German public, but argues that they are being addressed.
She does not believe there is any question of Germany not meeting the criteria even though the budget deficit is likely to be around 3.5 per cent this year, and she believes that even countries like Belgium, with its massive public deficit, will be able to make sufficient progress to qualify for membership from day one.
She maintains there is an overwhelming political determination to see the thing through in Germany, even in her own Social Democratic Party, despite signs that opposition might be a vote winner. She played a major part at the party's November conference in winning a pledge to back the Maastricht timetable. Chancellor Kohl has pledged publicly to stake his own reputation on meeting the deadline.
The cost of failure of the euro project is too much, Ms RandzioPlath argues, both in political and economic terms. She echoes the fear heard more and more from German sources that a decision not to launch, or to defer launching, the single currency will lead to determined buying of the mark, pushing up its value and threatening thousands of jobs.
"This is not a zero sum equation," she argues. "If we fail we don't just stay where we are, but go backwards." And she warns of the danger of a sharp growth in protectionist measures as countries devalue to compete.
Besides which, she says, postponement to 2000 or 2001 may not resolve anything if there is a down turn in the economic cycle.
Critical to the whole project, however, are the French, whose government seems genuinely determined to qualify. Whether it is able to do so depends crucially on whether the current hiatus in the European economy is a temporary pause or symptom of looming recession
The Commission is bullish then - it would be, I hear you say but - support for its general prognosis, if not necessarily for the more over optimistic predictions, has come from, among others, the respected - president of the European Monetary Institute, Mr Alexandre Lamfalussy, who points to historical evidence that upswings are often interrupted by such pauses. He points to high levels of profitability to suggest that fundamentals are basically OK.
Both France and Germany have in the past few days attempted to give co ordinated kickstarts to their economies, with Paris hoping to free high levels of personal savings for consumption with cuts in interest rates. The German Finance Minister, Theo Waigel, has spoken confidently of an upturn in the fourth quarter of the year.
That co ordinated approach was also the theme of the jobs initiative from the Commission's President, Jacques Santer, yesterday.
In the end, the spirit is more than willing but the flesh may prove weak. However, it is simply too early to tell if the euro's condition is life threatening. Persistent speculation that it may have to be postponed may, however, require more resolute confidence building measures.
Ms Randzio Plath yesterday called for agreement now on how the convergence criteria will be interpreted in 1999, a call backed by the Irish MEP, Ms Bernie Malone, who said that if the Commission did not propose to do so, the Parliament might take the initiative.
But short of announcing exactly who will participate and under what conditions, it is difficult to see the doomsayers being silenced.
