European payments union

The European Payments Union ( EPU ) was an amalgamation of 14 European countries and the pound sterling area to promote multilateral trade and payments in Western Europe. The 14 countries were West Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Belgium , the Netherlands , Luxembourg , Norway , Sweden , Denmark , France , Portugal , Italy , Greece , Turkey and Iceland .

These countries signed in September 1950 with retroactive effect from July 1, 1950, the Agreement on the Establishment of a European Payments Union ( English Agreement for the establishment of a European Payments Union ). The aim was the free convertibility of all participating currencies without having to fall back on the then scarce US dollar . This goal was achieved through a credit mechanism and multilateral clearing . The responsibility for clearing payments has been transferred to the Bank for International Settlements . Fourteen Western European states declared their currencies convertible in December 1958 ; then the EPU was dissolved and wound up. The successor was the European Monetary Agreement .

The European payments union - like the later European monetary system based on the accounting currency ECU - was also largely inspired by John Maynard Keynes' plan for an international clearing union , which he presented at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944 . Keynes, in turn, was inspired by Walther Funk's speech on the economic reorganization of Europe on July 25, 1940 .

The common experience behind the considerations was the bad experience with the gold standard during the global economic crisis .

Web links

• Egon Tuchtfeldt : The European Payments Union (pdf)

• Bundesgesetzblatt : Law on the Agreement on the Establishment of a European Payments Union. 14 March 1951.

See also

• Bancor
• Bretton Woods system
• European monetary system
• Gold standard

Footnotes

1. ↑ Barry Eichengreen: Globalizing Capital: A History of International Monetary System . 1998, ISBN 0-691-00245-2 , pp. 106-109 .
2. ^ Monthly reports of the Deutsche Bundesbank. December 1958 , page 3ff .: DM becomes freely convertible
3. ^ Annual report of the Deutsche Bundesbank for 1958 , page 47f.
4. ↑ "In my opinion about three quarters of the passages quoted from the German broadcasts would be quite excellent if the name of Great Britain were substituted for Germany or the Axis, as the case may be. If Funk's Plan is taken at its face value, it is excellent and just what we ourselves ought to be thinking of doing. If it is to be attacked, the way to do it would be to cast doubt and suspicion on its bona fides . " (John Maynard Keynes, November 20, 1949: Letter to H. Nicolson , T247 / 85, Public Record Office. Quoted from D. Moggridge (Ed.), The Collected Writings of John Maynard Keynes, Volume XXV: Activities, 1940-1944 - Shaping the Post War World: The Clearing Union. Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd. 1980, p. 2)