The Delors Report

On the basis of the single market and the smoothly operating European exchange-rate mechanism the idea of a single currency was rekindled. At an EC summit in Hanover in 1988 a committee was set up to prepare a report with proposals for the introduction of economic and monetary union and thereby a single currency. The committee comprised Jacques Delors, then President of the European Commission, the governors of the central banks of all 12 member states at that time, as well as three experts. The Danish members were Erik Hoffmeyer, then Governor of Danmarks Nationalbank, and Professor Niels Thygesen from the University of Copenhagen, who participated as an expert. The work of the committee concluded with the Delors Report in 1989. Like the Werner Report, the Delors Report proposed a transition to economic and monetary union in three stages. At a summit in Madrid in June 1989 it was decided to go ahead with the plan on the basis of the proposals in the Delors Report. It was also decided that the first stage of Economic and Monetary Union, EMU, was to start on 1 July 1990.