I've come full circle on the wisdom of a common currency

I HAVE changed my mind about the euro and no longer believe it is a concept to which all European nations should subscribe.

So what, you may ask. My only claim to a hearing is that I have followed the history of the euro from its inception to the present, and from both a European and an Asian perspective.

I began from what can be termed a position of inherited scepticism about the common currency in the early 1970s, when it was still a gleam in the eye of the European Union's founding fathers. I say "inherited" because the scepticism was instilled in me by then economics editor Peter Jay of The Times in London, for which I then worked.