No, it wasn't. Believe me, I was there in the middle of it because the analytic products I was working on had to be overhauled to adjust for the Euro (working over New Year's weekend, thank you very much). The initial EUR peg was based on the old ECU (European Currency Unit), which was a basket. Had they just used the D-Mark rate the EUR would have started off below par against the USD as the DEM never reached better than 1:1.
Rhody ,I understand what you are saying and you are right and I was being a little too generalised when I said the DM drove the level of the Euro. That being the case you can however if you are looking for a PROXY still use the old DM ..LOL because it is sufficient in tracking the long term value relative strength relationship between the $ and European currency ,because it was the heavy weight component in the old european currency basket which metamorphisised into the Euro ...LOL
back then I was running a business that billed across most major euro currencies. We transformed onto a Euro basis by by taking each individual currency and cross referencing it as a function of the value of the Dm for the period in which the billing arose. Referenced not to the franc,the lire ,the peseta ,but to the DM because it was the heavy weight.
