Crèche course on Europe

Date: 27/03/1997

The single currency would be with us today if the project had been handed over to the next generation a little bit earlier.

The evidence is contained in a 15-minute video produced by a group of five to ten-year-old children who took one look at the convergence criteria, threw the euro out of the window and demonstrated the art of single currency barter by negotiating shells for stickers and stickers for marbles.

“Our teachers tell us we have done the same as Europe,” declared one of the kids in the video.

But Consumer Affairs Commissioner Emma Bonino went even further, declaring that they had done better than German Bundesbank chief Hans Tietmeyer.

“You have done it in an easy way, better then Tietmeyer. Maybe you have not yet come across Tietmeyer. He's a big man, very powerful, who everyday explains to us the parameters of Maastricht,” she said.

Coming next: a crèche course in eradicating BSE...