Gordon Brown, Labour's shadow chancellor, yesterday set down five criteria on which a Labour government would decide whether to join a single currency. Speaking in Washington to the US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, Mr Brown said: "If the economic conditions are right, we will retain the option of joining ... in the first wave."

Ministers are hostile, bankers baffled, but monetary union is still on the cards

The Italian lira and the Spanish peseta both fell heavily against the German mark yesterday, as the confidence of traders and investors in Italy's planned early membership of European Monetary Union (EMU) began to unravel.

So teenagers aren't interested in politics. That's what yet another hand-wringing report said this week. Tell us something new. Politics isn't cool and it isn't sexy. Are we really surprised that young people can come up with something more entertaining to do?

The success or failure of a single currency will depend on decisions made during the next year, according to an authoritative new report.

Economics: Drugs are big business but we don't know enough about the economics to stop the rot, writes Yvette Cooper

The pound rose by more than three pfennigs against the mark yesterday, as the markets reacted to rumours that German borrowing will be much higher than the 2.9 per cent of GDP that the government is predicting, writes Yvette Cooper.

Rumours that plans were afoot in Brussels to keep Italy out of the first wave of a single currency led to volatile trading in the lira on foreign exchange markets yesterday. Italian government bonds also suffered.

We should listen to Toyota's boss instead of demonising him, argues Yvette Cooper

The "unpopular euro" has become the focus for "a crisis of confidence in European integration", according to a Bundesbank board member. Speaking to a conference on monetary union in Otzenhausen, Germany, yesterday, Bundesbank official Peter Schmidhuber launched a strong attack on critics of German monetary policy and institutions, in particular the French.