Liebscher, Klaus --- "Foreword" [2003] ELECD 100; in Tumpel-Gugerell, Gertrude; Mooslechner, Peter (eds), "Structural Challenges for Europe" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003)

Book Title: Structural Challenges for Europe

Editor(s): Tumpel-Gugerell, Gertrude; Mooslechner, Peter

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843764748

Section Title: Foreword

Author(s): Liebscher, Klaus

Number of pages: 4

Extract:

Foreword
Klaus Liebscher

The Oesterreichische Nationalbank's annual East­West Conference, on
which this volume is based, is designed as an international forum in which
leading experts from government and international organizations, central
and commercial banks, as well as universities and research institutes deal
with questions of the transition process and EU enlargement. `Structural
challenges and the search for an adequate policy mix in the EU and in
Central and Eastern Europe' is the comprehensive and demanding topic at
the centre of this volume. In recent years we have already witnessed
momentous ­ I would say, historic ­ changes in Europe, and the momen-
tum will be continuing, probably even accelerating, in the years to come.
After the completion of the internal market and the most recent enlarge-
ment of the EU in the middle of the 1990s, which also made my home
country a member of the European Union, we embarked on a bold strat-
egy of further deepening and widening our Union.
On 1 January 1999, the euro was introduced as a single currency for more
than 300 million people. At first, the euro was ­ so to speak ­ `virtual'. At
the beginning of 2002, however, the cash changeover took place and since
March 2002 all euro area citizens have indeed had the same currency in
their pockets. The cash changeover has been completed very successfully
with the broad ­ and often enthusiastic ­ support of the European citizens.
Now our eyes are boldly fixed on a new horizon: the further enlargement
of ...