Graphique représentant l'évolution des taux d'intérêt aux Etats-Unis et dans certains Etats membres de la Communauté économique européenne entre janvier 1971 et janvier 1972.

On 6 March 1971, the Committee of Governors of the Central Banks of the Member States of the European Economic Community (EEC), chaired by Baron Ansiaux, meets in Basel to examine the resolutions and decisions adopted on 8 and 9 February by the Council of the European Communities.

On 9 May 1971, during a television interview, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt explains the reasons behind the German Government’s decision to allow the Deutschmark to float.

On 12 May 1971, in a statement to the French National Assembly, the French Economy and Finance Minister and President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, reveals the measures proposed by France to combat the European monetary crisis.

On 14 September 1971, the Council of Ministers of the Six expresses its view on the reform of the international monetary system and calls for a realignment of all parities and for the abolition of the American surcharge.

On 20 July 1971, less than a month before the unilateral decision by the United States to suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold, the Council of Finance Ministers of the Six debates possibilities for resolving the international monetary crisis. Mario Ferrari Aggradi (left), Italian Treasury Minister, meets Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, French Economy and Finance Minister and President-in-Office of the Ecofin Council.

'The hour of the Europeans'. For the German cartoonist Gabor Benedek, American President Richard Nixon's decision to suspend the dollar's convertibility into gold is an incentive for the Member States of the European Communities to plan the introduction of a common monetary policy.

On 2 December 1971, the Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera analyses the difficult progress of the negotiations being conducted between the European Economic Community (EEC) and the United States with a view to resolving the international economic and monetary problems resulting from the collapse of the Bretton Woods system.

On 3 December 1971, during a visit to Paris, the German Chancellor, Willy Brandt, and the French President, Georges Pompidou, discuss, in particular, the monetary crisis and relations between the European Communities and the United States.

On 18 December 1971, the 'Group of Ten' publishes a communiqué detailing the main monetary measures approved by the Ministers and the Governors of the Central Banks of the ten countries participating in the General Agreements to Borrow, in Washington.

In this interview, Jacques de Larosière, former Head of Department in the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance, looks back at the end of the international monetary system, devised at Bretton Woods in 1944, following the United States’ decision in 1971 to uncouple the dollar from the value of gold.

In this interview, Jacques de Larosière, former Head of Department at the French Ministry of the Economy and Finance, discusses the principles which guided France's international and European monetary policy in the context of the end of the Bretton Woods system and the decoupling of the value of the dollar and the value of gold.