I was living in Brussels during the birth of euro and will never forget the competing reactions to the new currency. The euro-crats,many of whom I knew socially, were on cloud nine. A common currency to unite Europe! Lower prices, because the cost of goods could be easily compared across borders! And other marvels were promised. (As it happens, prices went up not down, because prices converge toward the mean in common currency zones, but they were too excited to listen to mere economics.)

Meanwhile, the man with the rain-stained hat who ran the news stand, the Arabs and Congolese who drove taxis as sideline to their main occupation of chain-smoking, the baker’s daughter, the barkeep at Cafe Havana, the waiter at Rendezvous Des Artistes, the old woman at the cheese shop and many other ordinary people, were depressed about the euro. They thought something important was vanishing, like the departure of the Latin Mass in 1965 or the habit of young men standing up on trams so that pregnant strangers could sit. They were not happy; they were grimly resigned to an inevitability. You see they weren’t asked to vote on it; they were simply told when their money would be worthless.

In my travels across the continent, I heard similar remarks from ordinary people. They wouldn’t generally volunteer them, but, when asked, a torrent burst.

Now, a little bit of people power is striking back, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in the Telegraph today.

Of course, this makes Britain’s reluctance to join the euro look more democratic by the day. As for the new currencies, they would make a smarter set of European overlords a little more cautious–but not the current crew.