This chapter analyzes the process of European monetary integration, focusing on the decades that led up to the creation of the common currency. This is because this period is one in which, as in the gold standard era, national governments had to decide on their currency policy, and, again as in the gold standard period, there were major domestic political conflicts over this choice. The battles over exchange rate policy in Europe since the early 1970s were at the center of the broader process of European integration. The eventual adoption of the euro was perhaps the crowning achievement of prointegration forces, and both the process and result reflect the central realities of contemporary Europe's political economy.