One year on from the launch of the euro, it is fair to say that European monetary union (EMU) has got off to a fortunate start. To begin with, this is true of the technical tasks which, apart from some slight teething troubles with the TARGET system of gross settlement, have all been successfully dealt with. But apart from that, it is true in an economic sense too. Because of the dip in economic activity following the Asian and Russian crises, inflationary pressure was limited from the outset, and did not increase significantly during the year.
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