In recent years, the discussion on the forms of organisation of the Franc Zone has again grown more controversial. The present article explains the functional structure of this currency association, and discusses the arguments of its critics.

This paper contributes to the discussion on the European current account imbalances by analysing the intra-European trends since 1990 based on the theory of optimum currency areas. The authors show that German unification was the origin of not only the 1992-93 EMS crisis but also rising...