The impetus to the first act of European monetary integration, the 1970 Werner Report, stemmed from awareness that there were major difficulties in the fixed exchange-rate system established in 1944 at the Bretton Woods conference. Nobody outside the US could force it to restrain either its monetary policy, which was becoming increasingly expansive under President Richard Nixon, or its fiscal policy, marked by mushrooming deficits due to the costs of the Vietnam war.
欧洲货币一体化的最初蓝图是 1970 年的《维尔纳报告》，当时的欧洲共同体之所以发起这份报告，就是因为意识到， 1944 年在布雷顿森林会议上建立起来的固定汇率体系存在严重问题：美国以外的任何势力都无法对美国的货币和财政政策形成制约。在时任美国总统尼克森治下，美国货币政策日趋扩张；由于越南战争成本高昂，美国财政政策则表现为疯涨的赤字。