GOLDEN BOOK

Monetary Committee
of the
European Community
1958-98

#...Early in 1976, the main international monetary issue for the Committee was the working out of a Community position on the question of the future role of gold in international monetary relations. The essential problem here was to balance the various interests within the Community itself and also, more particularly, outside the Community in such a way as to ensure, through minimum agreed standards of behaviour, that the international monetary system was spared further dislocation. The position worked out in the Community provided the basis for the subsequent gold agreement by the Group of Ten. This position has, as planned, been applied for two years and has, during this period of considerable balance-of-payments adjustment and heavy liquidity requirements in individual countries, helped to stabilize international monetary relations. It has now run its agreed course and consequently come to an end..."

...

"...The Monetary Committee is not comparable with any other group in the EC Not in its institutional embedding, not in its composition and nor in its functioning. The Committee was established in the Treaty of Rome as the only committee of experts. The Council decided two years later on the Statutes of the Committee. It enhanced its professional independence by determining that "... they shall be appointed in their personal capacity and shall, in the general interest of the Community,be completelyindependent in the performance of their duties." The Treatyof Maastrichtreconfirms and establishes even more firmly the role of the Monetary Committee. Even in the final stage of the Economic and Monetary Union, the Committee will continue to playa unique role in contributing to the economic and financial policy of the Community..."

Source: http://ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/emu_history/documentation/compendia/a981231en62goldenbookmoncomeurcommun.pdf