Monetary Expert on Monnet’s Action Committee for the United States of Europe

Robert Triffin played a key role in the debates on European monetary integration, especially as the monetary expert of Monnet’s Action Committee for the United States of Europe. He developed proposals for European monetary cooperation, especially a European Reserve Fund and a European currency unit, inspired by his experience of the European Payments Union. In his view, a European Reserve Fund could be constituted by pooling 10% to 20% of the international reserves of the member states’ central banks. A key moment was the 1969 Hague summit when Triffin, via Jean Monnet, provided the German chancellor Willy Brandt with a plan for European monetary integration. Moreover, through his activities and connections in the world of commercial banking and finance, Triffin also actively promoted the European currency unit as a parallel currency in financial transactions and markets.

Return to Belgium

In 1977, Robert Triffin decided to return to Belgium. He put forward two reasons: the invitation for a visiting professorship at the University of Louvain and, “most of all,” the opportunity to be involved, as an adviser at the European Commission, in the process of European monetary union. Triffin’s return to Belgium coincided closely with the advent of Roy Jenkins as European Commission president, who consulted Triffin regarding his monetary integration plans. Triffin was enthusiastic about the European Monetary System (EMS), which was established in 1979. With the support of the European Commission, especially Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, he organized four international conferences on different aspects of its functioning. During the 1980s, Triffin promoted the development of the private European Currency Unit (ECU) market, especially the establishment of an ECU clearing system.

Robert Triffin

This book provides an intellectual biography of Robert Triffin. Triffin (1911–1993) played a key role in the international monetary debates in the postwar period. He became famous with trenchant analyses of the vulnerabilities of the international monetary system that was dependent on a national currency for its international liquidity (the Triffin dilemma), predicting the end of the Bretton Woods system. Triffin was a child of the interwar period, marked by the Great Depression and the rise of fascism. He became not only an eminent academic but also an influential policy adviser. In the mid-1940s he worked at the Federal Reserve, participating in several monetary reform missions in Latin America. Thereafter, Triffin played an important role in the creation of the European Payments Union. In his later academic life, Triffin put forward proposals for reforming the international monetary system. But because he doubted that they would come to fruition, he also developed plans for regional monetary integration, particularly in Europe, where he became the monetary adviser of Jean Monnet. With proposals for a European Reserve Fund and a European currency unit, he became one of the intellectual fathers of Europe’s monetary union. Throughout his life Triffin remained faithful to the ideals of his youth. The young Triffin was indignant about the Versailles Treaty, while the old Triffin fulminated against the Vietnam War. For him, economics was a way to contribute to a better world. He was strongly attached to his independence and the pursuit of a better and more peaceful world. He was a monk in economist’s clothing.

Le système monétaire européen : Où en sommes-nous?

The decisions of the Council of Europe on December 5"', 1978, that would lead to the establishment of the European Monetary System, raise a multitude of questions. Among these, the creation of a European currency unit, the ECU, and the announcement of the establishment in the near future of a European Monetary Fund, the E.M.F., are the most symbolic decisions in terms of public opinion as well as the most important in their economic and political implications. In this article, we will show that the development of the ECU and the creation of a E.M.F. with substantial decisional autonomy are the two conditions necessary for strengthening the European monetary union.