Concluding the series charting the path to monetary union.

In 1991, the late Francois Mitterand, then president of France, and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl set a start date for Economic and Monetary Union, and the timetable for its implementation was agreed at the Maastricht Summit.

However, the pound soon dropped out of the European Monetary System - the qualifier for EMU membership - and the French franc narrowly avoided the same fate. The project's progress was further hindered by the anarchy of currency markets and public scepticism.