The euro is a child of the functionalist method. The method of partial integration provided the institutional framework and rationale for monetary integration. Without Monnet’s idea of delegating specific policy functions and prerogatives to supranational institutions, the euro would not have come into existence. Of course this does not mean that the euro was created exclusively for “functionalist” reasons and goals, or that the decision-makers were only supranational civil servants and elites. There would be no euro without the actions of powerful national politicians pursuing their own geopolitical and domestic objectives or without the backing of powerful economic interests (like German exporters). However, statesmen with political goals and producers with economic interests exist elsewhere, but do not end up with a “currency without a state.” Such a currency was only possible — politically, technically, and intellectually — in the exceptional institutional framework provided by European integration