The Invisible Anthology. Literature on the Last Bulgarian Banknotes

There is an invisible anthology of the Bulgarian literature that we literally carry along with us and hold in our hands every day. Its “pocket edition” is constantly before our eyes. And precisely because of that, it remains invisible and hidden from us. I am speaking about the texts printed on the last Bulgarian banknotes, those that we use now and that one day will be replaced by the common European currency. we’ll demonstrate how through the selected 7 figures and their texts the ‘canon of the banknotes’ is slightly retreated from the national-revolutionary canon, yet remains in the patriotic register. There is an accent on culture and its institutions, on the openness to the European space and the world. Part of the figures that appear on the banknotes are canonical yet presented with less known para-canonical works. what I will try to do in this text is to provide a magnifying glass for seeing the hidden signs and reading the texts and stories inscribed on today’s banknotes, including the delicate female presence on one of them.

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.

The Crisis of the Bretton Woods Monetary System and the Beginning of European Monetary Cooperation

The article aims to identify the impact of the crisis of the Bretton Woods monetary system on the beginning of European monetary cooperation. Russian scholars' publications on European monetary integration usually examine in detail the internal prerequisites for the emergence of the Werner Plan and only sketch the external environment. Drawing on available European and American sources, this research provides a more nuanced picture of the origins of European monetary cooperation in the context of a general collapse of the post-war international monetary order. The article begins with the characteristic of the main features of the Bretton Woods monetary system. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the intrinsic contradictions of the Bretton Woods mechanism, such as the problem of liquidity, confidence in the key currencies, and the adjustment mechanism, generated numerous monetary crises. All efforts to reform the international monetary system stalled because of disagreements between countries with surplus and deficit payment balances. The research also focuses on the US monetary policy. As the US dollar was the main reserve currency, the stability of the entire monetary system depended on its position. Since the late 1960s, conflicts over monetary issues developed between the United States and Western European countries, culminating in the Nixon administration's unilateral decision to abolish the gold standard in August 1971. Monetary crises and the weakness of the dollar pushed the countries of the European Economic Community to develop their own currency grouping. The article analyses the Werner Plan of 1970 that proposed the creation of an Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) with a single European currency as the ultimate goal. Based on fixed exchange rates between European currencies, the EMU represented a regional replica of the Bretton Woods system. The single European currency was seen by Europeans as an alternative to the dollar and the unpredictable American policy. The author concludes that the end of transatlantic monetary cooperation gave an additional impetus to the development of European monetary integration. Although first European efforts to create the EMU had failed because of the different approaches of France and the Federal Republic of Germany as well as the economic crisis of the early 1970s, the Werner Plan marked a crucial phase in the history of European integration. The Werner Report became a blueprint for the European Monetary System (EMS) of the late 1970s. The success of the EMS paved the way for the creation of the European Monetary Union envisaged in the Maastricht Treaty of 1991 establishing the European Union and the adoption of a single European currency - the euro.

The competitive position of the euro: factors and trends

The article highlights and considers the internal and external factors affecting the competitive position of the euro in the global monetary and financial system, evaluates the current role of the single European currency in international circulation. The system of structural, institutional, current and emergency programs to support the financial and economic stability of the European EMU, measures to enhance the international role of the euro in modern conditions is summarized and analyzed.

Introduction

In its more than seven decades of history European integration has gone through many stages of development. Some of them were incremental, but many more rather sudden, triggered or at least profoundly influenced by legal predicaments and political impasses, following the proverbial advice to ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’. The policy areas that are broadly abridged under the term Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) form no exception in this regard. EMU is deeply rooted in and following the inherent logic of political integration through gradual economic integration proclaimed in the well-known Schuman Declaration and thereafter given shape through the Treaty establishing the Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the subsequent Treaty establishing the European Economic Community. Yet, it was the Treaty on European Union (Maastricht Treaty/TEU), which was meant to put an end to the at times fiercely led (academic) debates on the future direction of European integration and its democratic credentials, that finally provided the necessary legal impetus for the establishment of an economic and monetary union and the creation of a supranational, single European currency.

The Origins of Republican War Debt Policy, 1921–1923

This chapter argues that elite factions of the American business, banking, and farm sectors grasped that war debt payments were intimately related to the controversies over German reparations, the restoration of European currency stability, the promotion of American exports, the alleviation of unemployment, and the revival of agricultural prosperity. In short, they were far from ignorant about the needs of European reconstruction after World War I. The chapter studies the origins of war debt legislation in a microscopic way. In doing so, it reveals the complexity of the policymaking process and the diversity of motives bearing on decision-makers. Here, the chapter demonstrates the role of business and economics in the making of U.S. foreign policy, as well as the pluralism within the business community, the messiness of the legislative process, and the salience of organizational pressures within executive branch departments.

European currency system: problems and developments of prospective evaluation

In the article the authors investigated the problems of the European monetary system functioning. It is emphasized that the EU and the Euro zone are currently suffering from strain and unsolved problems, which do not exclude gradual decrease in the EU countries consolidation and influence. The aim of the article is to analyze present days’ problems of European Union functioning and European monetary system, in particular evaluation their further development perspectives. Debt crisis in the Euro zone sets a question to the single European currency and European integration prospective. It is noted by the authors that as a result of economic crisis Europe are divided into two macro regions, which are unsuccessful “South” and prosperous “North”. Numerous prognoses foresee various scenarios for the situation development, from pessimistic to optimistic ones. However political efforts of the leading EU countries, primarily Germany, France, and the Netherlands are required.