Emu warning for Germans

An economics professor preparing a court bid to delay the launch of Europe's single currency warned Germans yesterday that they had most to lose from monetary union.

"Germany would have to fear the most negative consequences," Wilhelm Hankel, of Frankfurt university, told Saar radio, adding that the chances were high that the new currency, the euro, would be unstable. Mr Hankel and three other academics are preparing to lodge a complaint against Emu with the Federal Constitutional Court, the highest in Germany, in a bid to delay the launch due on 1 January 1999.

- Reuters, Bonn