Euro was created as a common currency initially among the first twelve European nations and then expanded in to others. The efforts for the European common market currency started post 1950 as an effort by the marginalized European colonial powers who after World War II saw the rise of United States as a world financial power house and dollar as a medium of petro-buying. The efforts along with the collapse of gold backing of dollar in 1971 saw the first oil crisis speed up the need of an alternate international currency to trade in as an alternate of petrodollar. Every such effort for an alternate international currency was shot down by US either overtly or covertly, as US gained tremendously by printing and selling dollars to the demand of petro products. This also made the US dollar an international reserve currency, a position used by the US to bring its enemies to the knees by freezing their dollar deposits.
So from 1980 onwards many oil producing countries wanted to shift to an a...