Hungarian-American investor George Soros's individual profit of £1 billion equated to over £12 for each man, woman and child in Britain and dubbing Soros "the man who broke the Bank of England". Britain's membership of the ERM was also blamed for prolonging the recession at the time, and Britain's exit from the ERM was seen as an economic failure which contributed significantly to the defeat of the Conservative government of John Major at the general election in May 1997, despite the strong economic recovery and significant fall in unemployment which that government had overseen after Black Wednesday. Increase of margins In August 1993, the margin was expanded to 15% to accommodate speculation against the French franc and other currencies. History of the ERM II On 31 December 1998, the European Currency Unit (ECU) exchange rates of the eurozone countries were frozen and the value of the euro, which then superseded the ECU at par, was thus established. In 1999, ERM II replaced the original ERM. The Greek and Danish currencies were part of the new mechanism, but when Greece joined the euro in 2001, the Danish krone was left at that time as the only participant member. A currency in ERM II is allowed to float within a range of ±15% with respect to a central rate against the euro. In the case of the krone, Danmarks Nationalbank keeps the exchange rate within the narrower range of ± 2.25% against the central rate of EUR 1 = DKK 7.46038. EU countries that have not adopted the euro are expected to participate for at least two years in ERM II before joining the eurozone. New EU members On 1 May 2004, the ten national central banks (NCBs) of the new member countries became party to the ERM II Central Bank Agreement. The national currencies themselves were to become part of the ERM II at dates to be agreed. The Estonian kroon, Lithuanian litas, and Slovenian tolar were included in the ERM II on 28 June 2004; the Cypriot pound, the Latvian lats and the Maltese lira on 2 May 2005; the Slovak koruna on 28 November 2005. On 10 July 2020 it was announced that the Bulgarian lev (which had joined the EU on 1 January 2007) and Croatian kuna (which had joined the EU on 1 July 2013) would be included in the ERM II. These states (with the exception