The stability in the euro zone in recent weeks has been in marked contrast to the currency turmoil in the rest of the world, Mr Ruairi Quinn told the British Trades Union Congress in Blackpool yesterday..
As the first leader of the Irish Labour Party to address the British TUC, he said European monetary union was already proving itself before its formal launch. He hoped the four member-states outside EMU would decide to join them "and enlarge our own island of stability in this period of global turmoil".
The keynote of Mr Quinn's address was the transformation of the relationship between Britain and Ireland arising from EU membership and the success of social partnership.
On the single currency, Mr Quinn said that when Europeans started trading with each other in the euro, they would begin to enjoy for the first time in modern history the kind of benefits that the United States had enjoyed.
Exchange risk would be eliminated, interest rates and inflation would remain low. The potential for investment would be stronger.
The reality of the euro required all European member-states to start to prepare for its introduction. By the year 2002 the euro notes and coins would begin circulation. Before that, the euro would be a trading currency for companies in European member-states including those which would not be part of the euro zone.
"It is very much in your members' interests", he told the TUC, "that the companies which employ them make the necessary internal arrangements to be prepared to trade in the euro currency.
"The bulk of Britain's trade is now with the euro memberstates", Mr Quinn continued. "From next January, many if not all of your customers will expect you to quote them in euros rather than sterling.
"If you are not willing to do so, they will certainly require you to carry any exchange risk associated with sterling".