A new currency is the silver bullet that supposedly kills all economic ills. Panama, El Salvador and Ecuador have the dollar; Montenegro and Kosovo the euro. Now it has been suggested that central European members of the European Union not in the eurozone should unilaterally adopt the euro too. This, the International Monetary Fund believes, could help forestall a regional crisis so severe that euroisation may happen anyway. Better to pre-empt the inevitable and euroise now.

It is hard to see, though, what lasting benefits this would have. Eastern Europe’s main problem is its foreign debt. About 60 per cent of all Hungarian loans are in foreign currency; almost 100 per cent in Latvia and Estonia. Euroisation might help the whole region roll over the $413bn that falls due this year by making devaluation impossible. That would reduce the region’s immediate need for IMF funds. But that is all. The debt problem would still remain. It would just be redenominated.