Word: euros
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...from 39 to 35 hours with no loss in pay, suspend planned privatizations, cut the sales tax and raise the minimum wage. The leftist platform, if implemented, threatens to send the deficits soaring and derail French chances of meeting the tough criteria for joining Europe's single currency, the euro. With Germany racked by increasing doubts about its own ability to make the grade, the French election touched off a new though probably exaggerated round of Euro-pessimism...
...Treaty, which sets the rules for combining Europe's currencies, the Socialists claim to be staunch supporters of the monetary union. But there is an obvious contradiction between Jospin's economic policies and the Maastricht requirements. "Their economic recipes are diametrically opposed to what is needed to join the euro," says Pierre Lellouche, a foreign policy adviser to Chirac. Seeking to calm such fears, Jospin said last week that his promised economic measures would be introduced only gradually. Quicker action is urged by the Communists, who hold three Cabinet posts and whose 39 votes Jospin needs to muster a majority...
...Socialists are also calling for changes or additions to the Maastricht Treaty, a document that most experts say cannot be renegotiated. Among the Socialists' conditions for joining the euro are an insistence that Spain and Italy be included (which Germany bitterly resists), the adoption of a pact endorsing measures to boost jobs and growth, and the creation of an "economic government" as a political counterweight to the future European Central Bank...
...memory of the hyperinflation that wiped out the nation's savings in 1923. Germans put great store in a strong, reliable currency and are not thrilled at the prospect of giving up their beloved mark. If they are to trade it in for a soft or unpredictable euro, they will do their best to fight...
...when the new euro will actually be in Europeans' pockets and checking accounts, some of the eastern states--possibly the same ones that join NATO--may be welcomed into the European Union. This reshaping of the old Continent could turn out to be the first stage of a new unity, as Clinton hopes and predicts. But there is also a risk that it could create a dangerous division of the Continent between nations that are strong and prosperous and those that are weak and fearful...