Political leader in Luxembourg. A lawyer, he held various major posts
from World War II. He became Prime Minister in 1959. Named chairman
of the European Community's Committee on Monetary Union in 1970, he
was instrumental in coordinating the member countries' economic and
monetary policies. He presented a scheme to the Commission and the
national governments, which was the base for the definitive plan passed
on 22 March 1971.
Although the world monetary
crisis in 1971 and the economic crisis in 1973 braked the project,
it was finally accomplished by founding the European Monetary System
in 1979.
Juan Carlos Ocaña
(1)
Pierre
Werner Report on Economic and Monetary
Union (11th October 1970)
(A)
Economic and monetary union is an objective realisable in the course
of the present decade provided only that the political will of the
Member States to realise this objective, as solemnly declared at the
Conference at the Hague, is present. The union will make it possible
to ensure growth and stability within the Community and reinforce
the contribution it can make to economic and monetary equilibrium
in the world and make it a pillar of stability.
(B)
Economic and monetary union means that the principal decisions of
economic policy will be taken at Community level and therefore that
the necessary powers will be transferred from the national plane to
the Community plane. These transfers of responsibility and the creation
of the corresponding Community institutions represent a process of
fundamental political significance which entails the progressive development
of political cooperation. The economic and monetary union thus appears
as a leaven for the development of political union which in the long
run it will be unable to do without.
(C)
A monetary union implies, internally, the total and irreversible convertibility
of currencies, the elimination of margins of fluctuation in rates
of exchange, the irrevocable fixing of parity ratios and the total
liberation of movements of capital. It may be accompanied by the maintenance
of national monetary symbols, but considerations of a psychological
and political order militate in favour of the adoption of a single
currency which would guarantee the irreversibility of the undertaking.
(D)
On the institutional plane, in the final stage, two Community organs
are indispensable: a centre of decision for economic policy and a
Community system for the central banks. These institutions, while
safeguarding their own responsibilities, must be furnished with effective
powers of decision and must work together for the realisation of the
same objectives. The centre of economic decision will be politically
responsible to a European Parliament.
(E)
Throughout the process, as progress is achieved Community instruments
will be created to carry out or complete the action of the national
instruments. In all fields the steps to be taken will be interdependent
and will reinforce one another; in particular the development of monetary
unification will have to be combined with parallel progress towards
the harmonization and finally the unification of economic policies.
History
of the European Union: Integration Process and European Citizenship
