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THE EUROPEAN CURRENCY UNIT (THE ECU)

The ECU - the Common Market's Collective Currency Unit - began to function in March 1979 with the establishment of the European Monetary System (EMS), which has an automatic regulator to maintain the set relationship between the rates of the currencies and a means of interconnection between them.

The EMS has 25.000 million ECU's used as short-term and long-lerm credit facilities. The European Monetary Cooperation Fund heads the EMS currency mechanism and calculates the ECU's rate in the currency basket of 10 members (minus Spain and Portugal which loined the EEC in 1986 and Sweden that joined it in 1991).

ECU's are emitted by the European Monetary Cooperation Fund. Issued ECU's are in circulation for only one quarter, then they are withdrawn and a new issue of ECU's is made for the next three months. Each time the volume of emission is fixed at 20 per cent of the Hold and dollar reserves of- the eight EMS members and Great Britain.

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As all other units of account the ECU has no material form like notes or coins intended for circulation and their issue is technic effected by entering them in accounts. The ECU is used in operati to cover mutual obligations within the Common Market. The cent banks of the member-countries can now sell ECU's for ot currencies.

Since 1986 the ECU may practically perform within the Common Market all the three functions of world money: that of setting up reserves, a means of payment and a universal means of purchase.

The EEC plans to turn the ECU into a full-fledged international currency, by setting up a special mechanism for supporting its rate of exchange on the world money market, i.e. a European Monetary Fund in 1992. That will be a second stage. It will be the emission centre for the ECU and the guarantor of its exchange rate which then will h fixed by quotation instead of being fixed by the Common Market when the currencies of the basket are quoted. Then the ECU will become a full-value currency.

The ECU's relative stability makes it an important means оf protection against currency risks. The ECU is very convenient - for banks carrying out operations with their branches abroad saving the costs of mutual currencies conversion.

Private banks may finance credit or open ECU accounts, so there are private ECU markets and an official ECU market. And the official ECU guarantees the stability of the private ECU. Over 500 financial institutions in the USA, Japan, Canada, India and other countries perform operations with ECU. ECU operations increase in variety: the ECU may be used now for transactions in futures on specialized markets, i.e. in Commodity Exchanges, for ensuring export credits, for traveller cheques, etc.

The ECU has earned the reputation of a solid unit of account and may well become world money.