The German voter and the Euro: Effects on the Bundestag election 1998?

The final decision for the introduction of the Euro as the common currency of eleven member states of the EU from January 1, 1999 on was reached despi te the negative or at least sceptical public opinion in Germany. The resear ch question to be answered in this article is whether the CDU/CSU-FDP-coali tion was punished for the decision by the German voters. After a descriptio n of the development of German public opinion towards the Euro and the prio rity of this topic over time, we present results of a special survey on the topic aiming at an explanation of the German Euro sceptics and the possibl e consequences of it for the attitude towards further European integration. Then in section 4, we analyze the perceptions of the positions of the Germ an parties concerning further integration. Thus, we can check the argument that the decision in favor of the Euro would not cause any disadvantages of the Kohl government since the established German parties all favored the s ame pro-European policy. Empirically, we can show that the German voters pe rceived the CDU/CSU in the position of the most integrationist party so tha t it is no surprise thar this parry had to face disadvantages at the 1998 B undestag election. Bur the loss of votes of the larger coalition party CDU/ CSU was not big; we estimate the CDU/CSU-loss due to the Euro decision of t he Kohl government to be about one half percentage point.