The six nations of the European Common Market agreed to move toward a monetary union by Jan. 1, 1981.

“We are like the couple who have an engagement party,” explained The Netherlands’ Foreign Secretary Hans de Koster. “If over the next five years we don’t get married, we return the gifts.” The simile aptly described the momentous agreement last week by the six nations of the European Common…

Because of sharp inflation and a mounting balance-of-payments deficit, the central bank has introduced hardfisted monetary policies. The result: the economy is cooling off considerably.

Throughout its remarkable postwar prosperity, Western Europe has reacted fast to fight inflation. Lately, it may have overreacted: with country after country splashing cold water on overheated economies, icicles have started forming. After clipping along at a 5.6% pace in 1964, the Continent’s overall economic growth rate dropped to 4%…

The Netherlands has two especially outstanding monetary experts: Netherlands Bank President Marius Holtrop and Treasurer General Emile van Lennep.

Even for men well accustomed to continent hopping, international conferences and crucial decision making, the managers of the free world’s money last week set something of a record for activity. In Uruguay, in Cannes, in Paris and in Basel, they met over the conference tables to make decisions that could…

Finance Minister Oud uttered a careful ‘if’ concerning the devaluation of the guilder: “The stability of the guilder is a necessity as long as world stabilization remains in the far in the future.”

Bedrock facts beneath the billows of press pother last week about the Gold Standard:

France. As to the flight of capital from France provoked by the fall of Premier Doumergue’s “Truce Cabinet,” the Bank of France was seen last week to have lost gold worth 360 million francs, or less than…