On January 1, 2002 over 300 million European citizens saw the Euro transform from a virtual currency into reality. Twelve countries ended their use of individual currency and joined forces in creating a uniform monetary system. These twelve countries are Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Britain, Sweden and Denmark choose not to switch to the Euro. The creation and implementation of the Euro was a long and tedious process that began in 1958 with the Treaty of Rome. The objective of this treaty was to create a common European market, which would benefit the regional economy by bringing these countries closer together economically. (Grabbe, 2002)

Creation and Implementation Time Line

• 1958, Treaty of Rome is ratified which laid the ground work for the Euro’s creation

• 1969, Prime Minister Pierre Werner of Luxembourg, is chosen to head a committee that will decide how to form the European Monetary Union (EMU) by 1980

• 1986, The Single European Act is signed. This contains the basic provisions, the EMU’s economic policy, organization and objective.

• June 1988, A committee headed by

The Nickel centers have started to drop out of the Euro Coins made in Belgian. While officials from the Belgian mint claim this is not supposed to happen, the middle falls out when the coins are left in the cold. It also happens when the coins jingle in people pockets. The problems here are that when the center falls out the coins became useless.

A few problems have surfed with the new Euro coins. First of all the price of nearly everything has risen at least ten percent to cover the costs of introducing the new money. Also while Americans use one-cent coins, most European countries do not. This makes the one-cent Euro coin very troublesome. A major supermarket chain is Amsterdam has stopped accepting the one-cent Euro coin; instead they will round off prices, in the customer’s favor. They believe that they will recover these losses by not having to deal with the one cent Euro piece. (Hines, 2002)

• July 1999, Production of the Euro banknotes begin

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