> We Europeans have switched from our country's respective currency to the Euro not to please us personally but for the economic good of the whole European Union.

The behind-the-scenes motivation wasn't about the common good, it was about the French trying to gain formal influence on monetary policy. The Germans had to agree in exchange for the French consent to German reunification. (Before the Euro, the rest of Europe was more or less reduced to copying German monetary policy, or face devaluations.)