Europe celebrates the 20th anniversary of the euro | Manning River Time
The European Central Bank celebrates the 20th anniversary of the euro as member countries grapple with the impact of the pandemic on the economy and the European Union establishes a new level of financial cooperation to help spur recovery. The event was marked at midnight by a light display in blue and yellow, the colors of the EU, projected onto its skyscraper headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany. The introduction of banknotes and coins in 12 countries on 1 January 2002 was a massive logistical undertaking which followed the introduction of the euro for accounting purposes and electronic payments three years earlier. Today, the euro is used in 19 of the 27 EU countries. The introduction of cash saw new euro notes and coins rapidly replacing German marks, French francs and Italian liras in ATMs, cash registers and wallets and purses. Store customers who paid in the old currencies received change in euros under fixed exchange rates. This swept the old currencies out of circulation as people spent their remaining national money. Warnings of a logistical disaster did not materialize. ECB President Christine Lagarde – in 2002 a lawyer at a global law firm – recalled withdrawing her first euros from an ATM near her home in Normandy with friends who predicted the change would overload the machines. “We made a bet: if the machine gave us French francs instead of euro banknotes, they could keep the money,” she wrote on the ECB website. “After midnight, we tried the cash machine. It dispensed clean, new euro banknotes, and we all raised our glasses to the new European currency.” The bank plans to redesign the banknotes, with a final decision on the new look expected in 2024. relatively minor update since introduction . The bank is also studying a possible digital version of the currency. Australian Associated Press
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The European Central Bank celebrates the 20th anniversary of the euro as member countries grapple with the impact of the pandemic on the economy and the European Union establishes a new level of financial cooperation to help spur recovery.
The event was marked at midnight by a light display in blue and yellow, the colors of the EU, projected onto its skyscraper headquarters in Frankfurt, Germany.
The introduction of banknotes and coins in 12 countries on 1 January 2002 was a massive logistical undertaking which followed the introduction of the euro for accounting purposes and electronic payments three years earlier.
Today, the euro is used in 19 of the 27 EU countries.
The introduction of cash saw new euro notes and coins rapidly replacing German marks, French francs and Italian liras in ATMs, cash registers and wallets and purses.
Store customers who paid in the old currencies received change in euros under fixed exchange rates. This swept the old currencies out of circulation as people spent their remaining national money.
Warnings of a logistical disaster did not materialize.
ECB President Christine Lagarde – in 2002 a lawyer at a global law firm – recalled withdrawing her first euros from an ATM near her home in Normandy with friends who predicted the change would overload the machines.
“We made a bet: if the machine gave us French francs instead of euro banknotes, they could keep the money,” she wrote on the ECB website.
“After midnight, we tried the cash machine. It dispensed clean, new euro banknotes, and we all raised our glasses to the new European currency.”
The bank plans to redesign the banknotes, with a final decision on the new look expected in 2024.
The original designs with generic windows, doors, and bridges from different eras that don’t represent any specific location or monument have had a relatively minor update since their introduction.
The bank is also studying a possible digital version of the currency.
Australian Associated Press