Letter: The historic euro

ir: The great event of the New Year is the advent of the euro. As yet, the euro exists only electronically, as befits the dawn of the electronic age. This is an unparalleled venture, for eleven nations of Europe to share a common currency - perhaps of great historic significance, depending on whether the move can be sustained.

The UK stands on the sidelines, hoping in some measure to share the benefits, yet not to join. Eventually, the UK will have to join, or else remain a poor off-shore island. Others will then control the conditions for our joining.

It is true that economic interests and political strategies have motivated this revolutionary change. Yet there is a visionary element. So frequently in past times - not least in this dying century - the nations have been at war with one another; certainly national interests and differences will not die; but this unification does promise to guarantee peace. It will in future be too expensive for one European country to fight another.

With the spread of the electronic network, it is conceivable that there may one day be a global currency.

As an Englishman, I find a certain difficulty in thinking of myself as "British". I have no difficulty in thinking of myself as European. Over the past half-century my books have been translated into many European languages and published in many European capitals.

As soon as my children were portable, my wife and I took them far afield, to France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Scandinavia. We had no difficulties, only edification and education. How are we not Europeans?

Some of our national hesitation is due to xenophobia. Some to our links with the USA. But if we were a properly accredited member of the EU, our links with the USA would still work to our advantage.

It is frustrating to see this great movement taking shape and colour before our eyes, while we stand colourlessly on the brink, still as indecisive as we have been for years.

BRIAN W ALDISS

Oxford