Ten years of the euro: the sceptics got it wrong too

I came across an upbeat pamphlet called EU:2010: An optimistic vision of the future. Written in 2000 by Charles Grant,  it set out a vision of a resurgent Europe into which he hoped the second Blair government would take us around about 2005...

So the Europe: 2010 pamphlet is easy to mock with hindsight. But that is not my purpose, quite the reverse. Grant is a clever and sensible fellow whose booklet makes a number of smart predictions... Some of them have come true – he even refers to the then-uninvented EU foreign and security minister as a "Ms CFSP" long before most voters had heard of Lady Cathy Ashton – and notes the growing need for budgetary co-ordination and discipline within the eurozone. How true, Charles!