Talk:Euro/Archive 4

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If you take the symbol for the euro and rotate it 90 degrees leftwards you will find it is identical with the logo for the computer game 'Quake II' which came out about the same time as the euro was introduced.

Table with joining criteria

Also, I think that it would be good to have a table with the criteria to join and the non-Eurozone EU members - so to see witch state covers the criteria and witch does not:

columns: country, EMU-II membership, inflation, budget deficit, (criteria4), (criteriaX), formal opt-out row1: "Euro/Stab&Growth pact requierment", >= 24 months, <= ?? %, ?, ?, ?, NA row2: "UK", 0, ..., opt-out row3: "Sweden": 0, ..., commitment to join (as per EU accession treaty) row4: "Denmark": 6 years, ..., opt-out row5: "Estonia": 1.5 years, ..., commitment to join (as per EU accession treaty) rowX: ...

199.64.72.252 12:18, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

It's a good table, but it adds even more bulk to an article that was already too long. It should really move to a separate article, in my view. Consensus? --Red King 00:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Not to a separate article, please, we already have too many articles dealing with similar topics. Move it to an existing article -- I suggest moving it to the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union, which is more relevant anyway and needs to be expanded anyway. Aris Katsaris 01:16, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Also possibly Convergence criteria, Stability and Growth Pact --- generally the whole thing is a mess, and many of these articles probably need be combined with the EMU one. Anyway, for starters, you can move the table to the Convergence criteria article. Aris Katsaris 01:22, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

With a unique heading and a #-type link from this page, then? 惑乱 分からん 15:49, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't we use the date the country joined ERM II in the column? The way it is now, we'd need to update it every month or so, and if we included dates, we could simply put in the date from which onwards the country will meet this criterion... —Nightstallion (?) 07:31, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal of conversion fees

It says: "A benefit is the removal of bank transaction charges that previously were a cost to both individuals and businesses when exchanging from one national currency to another. Although not an enormous cost, multiplied thousands of times, the savings add up across the entire economy." The first sentence might be fine, but the second one seems just palaver. And if the second one is all the support the first one can get, then maybe this argument for the euro should not be included at all.--Wikiwert 15:07, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

This is a frequently cited argument in favour of the Euro. In fact it is probably the most obvious and applicable to peoples' daily lives. I see no problem with either sentence. the first says, this is a benefit, and the second says that its a benefit, but not an enormous one. Do you want sources, or simply more detail? Peregrine981 22:49, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

I just think the "add up" argument is trying to restate the first sentence in a stronger way, like trying to convince the reader, when it really does not matter. However if a reliable source states it, I have not much to say.--Wikiwert 03:20, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

It should maybe be added that this is less of an argument for Sweden. The Swedish government has connected the crown to the EU treaty about this, and as a result the fee charged for using cash machines to get EUR within the EEA has to be the same as the fee charged when getting SEK in SE. Usually, both fees are zero. For sending money to/from bank accounts in SEK and EUR, most banks are still able to charge fees, although they typically are smaller than the fees for sending money in other currencies, such as DKK to Denmark. Banks still decide the exchange rates, though, so they can make some money that way. Many banks add 1-2% of the total amount as a fee when using a foreign currency with a credit/debit card, and as this fee is part of the exchange rate, the laws don't remove this fee. (218.228.195.44 02:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

What happens with payments and card usage outside the EU, but at places where the euro is the currency (currently Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, Vatican City State, Montenegro, Kosovo and some French non-EU colonies)? (218.228.195.44 02:26, 15 July 2006 (UTC))

Optimal currency area criteria

I noticed that there isn't any part written about the economic "Optimal Currency Area" (OCA) criteria as put forward in economic theory. These criteria are (mostly): Areas that are characterized by:

1. High capital and labour mobility. (Robert A. Mundell)
2. Widely diversified production and exports that are similar in structure between areas. (Peter Kenen)
3. High openess to trade and that trade heavely with eachother. (Ronald McKinnon)
4. Fiscal transfers.

Two notes:

1. All these criteria stand in relation to the ability to deal with asymmetric shocks (i.e. shocks that only hit one area). (Symmetric shocks are less problematic in a currency area as currency will depreciate as "one area", while asymmetric shocks will create an exchange rate that is too high for one area and one that is too low for the other, causing wage, price and unemployment problems).
2. Though I have some literature to refer to that analyses the euro, I simply don't have the time to read and write it all right now. Nevertheless, I think this should be a very important part of this page. I hope anyone else has some knowledge, literature and time for this. Sijo Ripa 02:08, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes and it was badly needed! (I suggested it on 24 August - see "Reactions following the constitution vote" above but don't know enough about it to write such an article. So thanks for contributing Optimal Currency Area - Eurozone. --Red King 23:29, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

---

Hello there! Thanks for the contribution. I just wonder - since most people have no clue what this is all about - if this paragraph could move down a few chapters into the technical details sections... I see people looking euro up and wanting to see a more everyday explanation first?

Feb 10, 2006

euro or Euro?

There is a major inconsistancy in the way people are spelling this word!!!! In standard American English (and I believe in standard British English) the name of a currency is never capitalized, except at the start of a sentence. But in this article, about 40% of the time, it is spelled Euro. This should definitely be consistent so - according to the precept "be bold" - I will change every Euro to euro.

Please note that I'm not making up this rule - in the table of fixed exchange rates (with the old European currencies) I only had to change "Mark" to "mark," all the other currencies were properly left uncapitalized. There are other places that use currency names derived from proper nouns, but the only example I can think of off the top of my head is "bolivars." (Definitely uncapitalized).

Now I could start in on "euro" as the plural, but this actually has some legal basis, though I'm pretty sure that the European Parliament doesn't yet have the right to dictate English grammer.

At worst somebody can easily revert my changes, but we certainly need to be consistent!

Consistently yours,

Smallbones 18:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

In German, all nouns are capitalized, though, so maybe "Mark" is an exception. 惑乱 分からん 19:02, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Of course this is the English language Wikipedia. In English, mark is not an exception. Deutschemark was an interesting exception (I've seen it both ways, but believe capitalized is correct). I think the logic is that it is specifically a foreign word, using the full name of the country in front - like U.S. dollar.

BTW, of course any word derived from the full form of the proper noun "Europe" should be capitalized, but any word derived from "euro" should not be. So, based on this principle, it looks like it should be "euroland" and the "eurozone" and in general Brits are "Eurosceptics" though they may be "eurosceptics" as well. I'll wait for reactions before trying this out however.

Smallbones 19:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Fair point. I guess, now when I think of it, that words like dachshund or doppelganger never are capitalized in English, so maybe that wasn't such a good point.惑乱 分からん 07:48, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

It should definitely not have capital except at the start of a sentence. If you see any, feel free to edit out. Wiki has many editors with English as a second language and any capitalisation is probably unconscious rather than deliberate. --Red King 15:57, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello - its an interesting subject. I believe the capilalis(z)ed German Deutsche Mark became English Deutsch Mark as a way of respect towards another language:

For many Germans un-capitalis(z)ing their very own currency (and the € is a continental European currency) is a very disrespectful thing. I aggree on complying with English language and it's Grammar, but in terms of new nouns coming up in relation to European Integration, and English being one of the main working languages in Brussels and Frankfurt, British English is exposed to dynamics which is changing British English and might even evolve in a new Euro English. The ECB website is calling it "euro", but for the public in Germany it will always be the "Euro".

The Financial Times uses "eurozone" (no cap, no hyphen), and I agree with a previous comment that "Euroland" is a tabloidism. "Euro English" is an interesting concept, and Brussels might (or might not) get the UK and Eire to go along with it, but what about all the other English speaking countries, e.g. Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.S. It seems that that vast majority of native English speakers live outside the EU and our language rules should be respected. Please don't be Eurocentric about this, using "euro" is no more disrespectful to Europe than "dollar" is disrespectful to the U.S.

A comparison in this matter to "dollar" doen't work since Americans call it "dollar" themselves.

Deutsch Mark is a "foreign term" in English language and the naming of the € is just as foreign to English speaking countries, with the only difference that it is also "Euro English". Concerning the number of English speakers: "Euro English" might well outnumber "American English" and "Commonwealth English" speakers combined but this shouldn't be an argument in the first place.

I have no intentions to disrespect overseas English language rules, it is more a matter of finding the right balance of language influences in a growing together of Europe and the handling of € is a good example. I can see it being de-capitalized in the future but "Euro" just looks more natural!

Surely I don't know how French and other European languages deal with the de-capitalization.

Another thought: "Euro" and "euro" seem to be used in parallel. In the recent past I was paying more attention on how international press and online-articles spell the currency; I have seen plenty of articles where both euro and Euro have been used at the same time with "euro" being used when the currency is mentioned as a currency and "Euro" when mentioned as the currency.

It makes sense to me as in when talking about it: the currency (especially when having the Euro-bills in mind) it is spelled Euro; and when talking about currencies (in general) namely as electronical (or is it electronic?) means of payment (e g for financial markets) it is spelled euro.

How does this sound in relation to English Grammar? :-) To my knowledge that s fine; similar to "North Sea", "Baltic Sea" etc and then just "sea". Greetings

Smallbones, of course the correct spelling of euro is without a capital letter (unless at the beginning of a sentence). The spelling *Euro is a hypercorrection based on the habit of capitalizing the name of the continent. The s-less plural euro has a legal basis, but only because of a screw-up in language planning and foolishness on the part of Charlie McCreevy who was Irish Minister for Finance. The "rule" is to use the s-less plural in legislation because that way the legislation is consistent, but the recommendation is to use the natural plural euros in all other circumstances. The only reason the s-less plural persists is the fact that Irish broadcasters continue to use it. Evertype 08:34, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It's worth noting that non-currency units are decapitalized too, even where they are derived from a proper noun. The SI unit of a force is a "newton", the SI unit of electric potential is a "volt", and the CGS unit of magnetic flux density is a "gauss". My German physics professor did not like to see "gauss" with lowercase g, but that's the way it is spelled in the Oxford English Dictionary. Mtford 06:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Competitive funding?

Can someone clarify this section? Sijo Ripa 23:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I think what the author meant was that, prior to EMU, a Spanish (say) company really only had access to venture capital or loan capital denominted in Pesetas, unless it wanted to add exchange risks on top of all the other risks. Now it has (theoretical) access to euro-denominated funds anywhere in the Eurozone. How true this is hard to say, but there is certainly widespread anecdotal evidence that in Ireland, France and Italy (at least), the local banks were running a closed shop, with rates that were far less favourable than were obtainable elsewhere. But I don't know how to say that succinctly. [I didn't write it in the first place!] --Red King 00:03, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

To much focus on all those dwarfs and wannabe's!

What about the economic core of the euro? Shouldn't the article bring out more of that?

Phrasing of list of members

Maybe it's just me, but I have a strong objection to the way in which this (below) is phrased:

The euro is sole currency in the following EU member states:

• the six EU founding nations Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg as well as
• Austria, Finland, Ireland, Portugal and Spain and Greece.

Why should it be highlighted that Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg founded the ECSC (not the EU, which was formed later). To me, it strongly makes it out as if they had a very special part to play in creating it. Why can't it just be one (alphabetised) list like before, instead of this split into two lists (whach are going in a seemingly random order)? - ^R_H^e_o^d_t 12:34, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, it's gone! - ^R_H^e_o^d_t 11:58, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"Cent" universal?

The article states that the word "cent" is official in all EU languages, though French and English informally maintain the plural cents. However, I don't believe this is true for Greek, where something like λεπτον is used instead. (Greek Wikipedia doesn't appear to mention this, though.) kwami 10:28, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, λεπτό singular, λεπτά plural. kwami

Yes you're right. It doesn't show it on the coins however, except on the Greek ones. I presume its due to lack of space. With coins, they can't be as detailed as notes, so things have to be a bit bigger and more allowing, and a whole extra word, that's even longer than cent, just for a state that's one in twelve I think it's just accepted that it's not feasable. - ^R_H^e_o^d_t 11:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll correct that, then.

Hi, some time in January I added a paragraph about the Italian usage, which should be now in Linguistic issues concerning the euro. IIRC, I also added a comment in the Euro article source suggesting that linguistic issues be treated in Linguistic issues concerning the euro rather than in the Euro article itself, but I don't know if it's still there (and honestly I'm not sure if I wrote the suggestion in a comment or in an edit summary). Anyhow, as a native speaker, I can assure you that "cent" is almost never used in Italian, and absolutely never in spoken language. Even in writing, it appears almost exclusively in gas, electricity, telephone bills et similia, and is rather perceived as an abbreviation of "centesimo"/"centesimi" (being in fact usually followed by a period: "cent.") rather than as an autonomous word. I guess most of us associate "cent" with the American cent, meant as 1/100 of a dollar (I forgot to say... the Italian word "centesimo" just means "hundredth"). --Gennaro Prota 12:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

To be fair, the article only said the word cent was official, not that anyone ever used it. However, I think your point should be mentioned. kwami 17:34, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

It was, one day :) See "Revision as of 00:11, 19 January 2006" which is mine (though, due to timeout, only my IP address appears). Immediately after I added a comment saying to move everything to the Linguistic issues article and someone else did the actual move. I guess the person doing the move lost the cent/centesimi part along the way. That's roughly the point until which I have been following the article; after that modifications became too frequent for me to keep up, though I have never removed it from my watch list. If you want I can add the Italian info again. Cheers. --Gennaro Prota 18:09, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Readded now. See Linguistic issues concerning the euro. --Gennaro Prota 18:54, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me being slow, but I don't think you mentioned what is said in Italian. What do you say? - ^R_H^e_o^d_t 12:59, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, taken from the article:

1. In Italian the word euro is used, as both singular and plural. No slang replacement exists.
2. The word cent is in practical use always replaced by the word centesimo, which simply means "hundredth"; its plural form is centesimi.

Maybe I have misunderstood your question? --Gennaro Prota 15:20, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

No. That's exactly what I meant. (And sorry for the late reply; I was in France since I wrote that question and I was just being slow!) - ^Red_Hot 20:35, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

This article seems to have a strong pro-Euro anti-US stance in that it doesn't include several criticisms about the Euro as well as potential problems with the Euro becoming the new reserve currency. For example, countries not being able to set their own interest rates/fiscal policy has made some manufacturers very uneasy. Also, in regards to the Euro there are some very significant downsides to becoming the new reserve currency that the article doesn't discuss. In fact, the European Central Bank has made no indications that they would like the Euro to become the new world reserve currency. There are significant economic implications to running currency deficits, and the somewhat manufacturing-heavy European economy which this article does not even discuss.

Despite it being nominated as a "well written article" this article is severely lacking in criticisms of the Euro as well as not discussing any sort of downsides to some of the possibilities discussed.

Rewrite.

I don't quite see how failing to mention problems that the euro economies would incur if the euro were to become the major reserve currency is an anti-US stance?

I agree that the article needs to be reviewed for NPOV violations (and general accuracy), but it's hardly bad enough for a rewrite; it might be a good idea to be careful and provide references before accusing anyone of anti-Americanism.

RandomP 15:53, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

I would be happy if the anonymous poster would learn that euro is not a proper noun and is not supposed to be capitalized any more than dollar is. But that's me. Evertype 19:24, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Other objections in the non-participating states

I think that a few other things out to be mentioned regarding Sweden, the UK and Denmark. I can't speak for the other countries of course, but in the UK there are fears that switching over to the Euro will negitivly impact the nation's soverignty, and bring Britain one step closer to ceasing to exist as a political entity.

Additionally, there was the incident where the UK was forced out of the first ERM, the damage this incident did to British interests still leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many British business leaders.

After eight and a half years of euro in Germany - do you think Germany does no longer exist as a major political entity in Europe? Same for France or Spain? Well, I don't think so. After WWII and its heavy impact on German patriotism the immense success of deutsche mark was next to the constitution the only other one focus of patriotism. That's why so many Germans rejected to give up the deutsche mark. Still today average Germans "mournig" about lost of deutsche mark but on the other hand we are proud to have established together with our neighbours a single currency. I guess that it would work out for Britain as well. But nevermind, if Britons prefer to stay out it is simply your best right which is not to be critizied by others. As a Britain-loving German I would feel happy when you join but as I said: It's your choice.

What I would like to say further on about that UK was forced out of ERM I is, that it is simply not true. One has to see that a majority of Britons vote for staying out of Europe (while geographically are a part of it :-)). So it was an easy-to-build legend to blame Europe. By this British politicians didn't need to find explanations for the people. In fact the whole ERM I system failed not only the GBP in the system.

Well, I can speak for one other country, Ireland, where I live, and it has not negatively impacted our sovereignty, nor brought us closer to ceasing to exist as a political entity. Our businesses do not have to worry about fluctuating rates of exchange, and we can use the euro in nearly every other EU country, without having to exchange money, pay transaction fees, etc. Unfortunately I usually have to travel through England en route to the continent, so I have the inconvenience of having to change money into your pounds. Still, it's your country, and if you're happier that way, who am I to object?

On a more insular note, if the newly devolved Northern Ireland were to adopt the euro, it would be most convenient for all of us, north and south, and be a useful and peaceful step towards unity. Millbanks 22:50, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I think Swedes are a bit afraid against the Larger EU contries, that they might not listen to "little Sweden". I think it also have to do with Swedes not wieving themselves as truly eruopeen, more like Scandinavians or Northmen (or "Nordbo" as we say). Euro just feel too... europeen. --Red w 19:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

When did it become a currency?

The second paragraph of the article says:

The euro was introduced to world financial markets in 1999 and launched as a currency in 2002.

At the same time, the section headed "2.1 History (1990-2002)" says:

The currency was introduced in non-physical form (travellers' cheques, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) at midnight on 1 January 1999, when the national currencies of participating countries (the eurozone) ceased to exist independently in that their exchange rates were locked at fixed rates against each other, effectively making them mere non-decimal subdivisions of the euro.

This inconsistency ought to be removed. I'd suggest that the second quoted paragraph - that the currency was introduced in 1999 - is more accurate. At that time, the legal status of the existing coins and notes were, I believe, changed so that they became representations of a fixed value of the euro. In practical terms, it was in 1999 that the usefulness of the euro to businesses came into being. For example, if a French company signed a contract with a German company, which was for a fixed number of deutschmarks and delivery two years later, the exchange rate risk (namely that the number of francs this would produce for the French company might change in the coming years) was eliminated from the start of 1999 rather than in 2002. Adrian Robson 12:14, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and have edited the introduction paragraph appropriately. Revert me if I'm wrong. Henning Makholm 19:57, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

My changes

This was unwieldy to type in the edit comment, so I'm putting it here.

• The date for the opening of the oil exchange is unknown. The previous date listed is anachronistic.

• The reason for Irans delays of the opening of the oil exchange are unknown. The claims listed in the previous version were speculations. Joffeloff 21:40, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

CFP Franc

There are some hints that the Euro is to be introduced in French pacific territories in 2007... shouldn't this be mentioned on the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.36.8.100 (talk • contribs) 2006-05-28 13:45:25

Perhaps. If you can find verifiable, reliable sources for those "hints", then go ahead and add a description of them to the article. Henning Makholm 14:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

I've also read of this, but I haven't been able to find anything giving a date for that to happen... —Nightstallion (?) 16:55, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

The best source currently only I could find is [1]. I did have something stating that French Polynesia's parliament approved such a change, but the site at [2] is no longer available, not even with the Wayback Machine. —Nightstallion (?) 17:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

another source says chances of an early introduction of the euro in New Caledonia in the nearly future are slim...Thewikipedian 11:53, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Pacific franc have to be part of ERM II for two years prior to being replaced by euros? Cf. the Estonian crown which also has been pegged to the euro since the beginning. This would rule out replacement by euros in 2007. (218.228.195.44 04:58, 14 July 2006 (UTC))

Nope. There is a difference between EU (candidate) countries adopting the Euro and third states doing so. Any country theoretically could simply declare its national currency to be the Euro, the US Dollar, or sheep, for that matter, without the support of the ECB, US Fed, or local barnyard. Montenegro unilaterally adopted the Euro quite some time ago. The DOMTOM have the added benefit that they are, in many senses, administratively part of France.samwaltz 06:07, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

OTOH any country that unilaterally adopts the euro will not have the ability to produce its own currency (unless it wanted to get into counterfiting which would open up a whole can of worms of its own). This would essentially mean that all its citizens will be paying a hidden tax (by way of inflation) on thier savings to the EU. Plugwash 19:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Version 0.5 Nomination

This article has been approved for inclusion into Version 0.5. However, is it possible to add a very brief summary of information about future entrants to the Eurozone? Currently, this article's section points to that article, but it should have at least a short list of the countries scheduled to enter. A few more references could help too. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 05:37, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

GBP query

Why is GBP out of format on the currency exchange rates??

i.e. 1 GBP = € 1.45800 rather than € 1 = 0.686705 GBP

Please feedback DannyM 07:10, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I think I added the currency exchange rate section there. I do not know the usual "format" of displaying exchange rate in the Eurozone, so I just put whatever I think that makes sense to me. Of course, I don't get the format right all the time. However, the information itself is not wrong. --Chochopk 06:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the message, sorry to appear critical :(. The values are correct (well as of yesterday morning @0705 UTC (0805 BST)). DannyM 08:09, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

For your example above, € 1 = 0.686705 GBP is used here in Ireland.

When I watch British channels it is used the other way around as it is

outside the Eurozone and thus intends to buy the euro currency.

Market convention is EUR/GBP, e.g. 0.6845, not GBP/EUR, e.g. 1.4609. It has been this way since the euro was introduced on 01/01/1999. The British media frequently get this wrong, quoting wholesale rates as GBP/EUR, which is pointless, as that's not how it's traded. Retail rates are another story, but in most countries, they too are quoted EUR/GBP, not GBP/EUR. NFH 18:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Price parity - what?

The article says

"Similarly, price transparency across borders is said to benefit consumers find lower cost goods or services. There is no universally accepted scientific theory based on firm evidence that this is an inevitable consequence, but rather is more likely to come about, if and when it does, due to popular belief in this system."

I can't, off the top of my head, think of an economic theory that would come close to meeting the standards that a scientific theory has to meet. And I certainly don't think that any of them could be described as an "accepted scientific theory based on firm evidence that this is an inevitable consequence". (The laws of motion or gravity would presumably fall into that camp.) Economics is too heavily influenced by human behaviour (either at a macro or micro level) to get it right every time. There are just too many variable to model. That's why every financial instrument in the world has some risk attached.

Obviously, something does need to be said about price parity/transparency. It's a fairly important benefit of cash over the barter system... Maybe the currency page has some info on it. I'll give it some thought and amend this section, unless anyone has a strong argument against my view here. Kayman1uk 08:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The quote from the article show extreme naivite about what a scientific theory is, but the follow up is, if anything worse. "universally accepted scientific theory" is an oxymoron. "inevitable consequence" very questionable concept except in very loose conversation. Economics is not a science? Please check out the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences. If you're saying that economic and other social sciences are more difficult that physics or chemistry or biology, etc. you are merely stating the obvious. BTW, there were certainly times when chemists used to say that biology was not a real science, forgetting of course that there were times when physicists said that chemistry wasn't a real science.... Smallbones 14:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

The comment that euro caused price increases is questionable. Trade unions in Cyprus studied the situation in Europe and found out that there were some price hikes in countries that their currencies were worth only a few eurocents if even that. For example, 1 drachma was worth 0.29 eurocents and Greece has seen increases. Countries with currencies valued close to the euro or even higher saw small price drops. The introduction of the euro also seems to have given the opportunity for price hikes on some items that were due for that for years. For example, in Cyprus many goods became more expensive over the years, while some agricultural products hold their prices steady for more than 10 years now. A rounding up is very possible, but further long term price stability is expected. --Q43 12:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Heads or Tails

Which side of the Euro coin is heads and which is tails? Most people I know say the sign with the map is heads, and the other side is tails. However, on many countries euros, that side actually has a head on it.--Richy 00:16, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Heads is national side. Tails is the denominational (value) side. _└ ^VodkaJazz / _talk ^┐ 01:08, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Is it? I know that here in Ireland most people would say heads is the common side. Although we usually have Irish euro coins and say "head or harp?" when flipping, as the harp is on the other side... Stifle (talk) 13:54, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I'd agree. I'm in Ireland too, and whenever someone uses heads and tails, heads always refers to common side. But as far as I know, it is officially the other way around. - ^Рэд_хот 21:09, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

In Portugal now we never say "heads or tails" but simply "national or common?" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 212.13.62.48 (talk) 11:30, 8 March 2007 (UTC).

And in Dutch it would be kop (head) or munt (mint or coin side), head will definitely be the Queens head as it was that way for the previous currency. Hence in the Netherlands the national side side is head. Arnoutf 19:03, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

"Heads or harps" has always been the way in Ireland. No confusion there. Rwxrwxrwx 15:40, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

In Germany we always said "Kopf oder Zahl" which means "head or number", so we don't have that problem. :) Which currency has TAILS on the coins? o_O 84.58.146.67 15:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Same bag?

in the info box: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kosovo, Luxembourg, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, and Vatican City

• it is nonsence to put all in the same bag, only the twelve countries should be included, the rest should have a different place, but not mixed, the Euro is the merger of 12 currencies (period), and has nothing to do with kosovo, neither with Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City that use the currency due to an agreement. it is like saying the Dollar is the currency of Transilvania, Sealand and the United States of America. --Pedro 23:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

French DOM-TOM

I just removed the French DOM-TOM from the list of countries using the Euro, because ... they're not countries. They use the Euro because France does. We do not say the United States and the District of Columbia use the U.S. Dollar, even though D.C. is a district, not a state. samwaltz 08:12, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

I can see your logic, but I think comparing DOM-TOM is not really analogous to District of Columbia. It would be like the insular areas of the U.S.. List of countries do list Mayotte, Saint Pierre and Miquelon as "dependent territories". It also list Guam, Puerto Rico, etc. The very same article also says "The overseas regions/overseas departments of French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion are integral part of France, and therefore not listed." So if that is true, i.e. these 4 places are no different than Île-de-France (are those 4 régions or départements?) then I will say no more.

But what about (Mayotte) and (Saint Pierre and Miquelon)? --Chochopk 09:18, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Euro as unofficial currency

Could we include a section about locations where the Euro has not been recognised by the local governments, but is often used as currency, regardless? I can pay in Euro in large parts of Slovakia (Bratislava, Nitra) and Hungary (Sopron). Additionally, I have been in countries outside the Eurozone where I could take Euro from ATMs/Bankomats. samwaltz 09:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

The euro is also in common usage in western Russia and Turkey. Stifle (talk) 13:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Can you get euros from just about any cash machine, or only at a few special locations? In Stockholm there is a small amount of cash machines where you can withdraw cash in euros, but most of them seem to be located at airports and similar places. Some even offer pounds sterling, and the main usage for these seems to be withdraw money and then leave the country for somewhere else where EUR or GBP is used as the main currency. Also, in Sweden, the card is still charged in Swedish crowns -- are you charged in Slovak crowns and Hungarian forints or in euros when withdrawing cash from those machines? (218.228.195.44 07:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC))

I think we definitely could, but you'll need sources. It would be a good contribution to the article, but if it's not recognised at any level, then we'll need a source (even an online shop from the region might suffice) - ^Рэд_хот 21:14, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I understand that some large retailers in the UK, eg Marks and Spencers and Sainsbury's, accept euros, but I've a feeling that any change is given in UK currency. Is that so?

Also on one or two occasions in England, I've been asked, eg at the Hilton at London Heathrow, if I want the bill in Euros. The answer is yes, because I can then pay on my (Irish) credit card without currenccy transaction charges.

Closer to home, the city of Newry in the north of Ireland is in the UK, but it has long pioneered dual currency (£/€) trading, and 30% of all cash passing through their checkouts is in euros. Things are not so happy in another border city, Derry. A lot of people from Donegal do their shopping there, and have to pay currency exchange charges as a result. Millbanks 08:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Smallest unit (expertise required)

It is said that prices in the Netherlands and Finland are round to the nearest 5 cent multiples. My question is, are thing already priced individually to the nearest 5 cent multiples already? What about gasoline? What about the interest you get from your saving account? Do people have the tendencies to go one step further and price things to 10 cent multiples?

What about other countries?

Thanks. --Chochopk 10:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

No, articles are priced exactly, and when paid for by non-cash methods (credit cards, etc.,) are paid to the precise cent. It's when cash is used to pay for the transaction that the total price of all articles bought is added up, and that sum is then rounded to the nearest 5 cents, so the total rounding is never more than 3 cents. If the price of every article on sale was rounded to the nearest 5 cents it would be enormously inflationary. -- Arwel (talk) 12:26, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Do shops also have rules on very small purchases to stop people either getting stuff for free or at least a vert significant discount by making tiny transactions? Plugwash 22:45, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

They use common sense. Stifle (talk) 13:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Keep in mind that 5 cents are the equivalent of nothing. Nothing would ever have prices as low as 5 cents, so I do not think this is an issue. The value of countless such minimal transactions would at any rate be so small that the only people I could think of that would value their time so little to endeavour on a mission to get these discounts would be very small children. Bfg 19:17, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Some time around introduction of EU coins there came up the idea how to become a millionaire. It went like that: 0. go to germany, 1. go to your local bank, give it 1 german Pfennig which they have to convert to 0,511 cent which is rounded to 1 cent. 2. get the cent, have them convert it to Pfennig: 1 cent = 1,96 Pfennig so you get 2 Pfennig. 4 Take them and convert them *individually* to cent again. This idea would have worked, unfortunately the time needed for getting a million this way was way too long: 10^8 transactions needed :) 194.97.235.6 10:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Bfg is, of course, speaking from the point of view of some very rich countries, with very high incomes. Their statement that 3c is a ridiculously small amount which won't concern anyone apart from children will surely apply to wealthy countries, but is unacceptable in the poorer EU countries, where even the small approximations which were brought about by the initial conversions to euros had reprecussions on the average family's buying power. 83.132.98.149 14:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I'd point out that expertise is not required for this. All is needed is someone who either lives in, or has been to the Netherlands or Finland (since the euro came in in cash). - ^Рэд_хот 10:00, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Plural

As the only English-speaking country that uses the euro is Ireland, it seems to follow that official and common usage in Ireland would dictate the plural. The usage is split with a slight favouring of "euro" over "euros". Even if it was the other way around, this is hardly conclusive; the official plural "euro" is certainly a better choice for the Wikipedia. Stifle (talk) 13:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Incidentally, I've listed the edit war on WP:LAME, as it admittedly is. Stifle (talk) 13:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Bully for you. The English-language Wikipedia isn't "for" Ireland, and the usage of the s-less plural is a mistake only perpetrated upon the Irish people because Charlie McCreevy didn't get it right and didn't fix his error when it was pointed out to him. Spain and France and Portugal quite sensibly use the natural plural euros in all contexts other than legislation. The consensus has been to use the natural plural euros on the Wikipedia because it reflects the actual usage of most English-speaking people in the world and that includes people in Ireland whether you consider them to be in the majority or in the minority. You may think this disaster of language-planning is "lame". But it's not. Language matters, and Irish people who travel and say "fifty cent" just sound like rubes—and while you may not have been paying attention, I was. The s-less plural, when first "introduced" by RTÉ, weirded out everybody in Ireland, until (some of) them heard it so often they started to use it, "because they were supposed to". Well, they weren't supposed to. Evertype 14:44, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that the discussion is not a lame one, but Evertype - you are taking this discussion way to personal. I'm a member of the "Norwegian conservative language" group (the best translation I could think of), so I share your need to get agitated over linguistic issues. But still we should try to keep the discussion civil. Statements like "Bully for you" are not promoting such an environment. Bfg 19:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I take your point, but "bully for you" seemed to be an appropriate counterpoint to "as it admittedly is". I guess I might have added a smiley. It's just that this is extraordinarily tiresome. The decision to prefer the plural "euros" on the English-language Wikipedia dates back to 2002! (And I was not involved with this page then, either.) Evertype 07:24, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

The only "official" aspect is that the bank notes say 5/10/20/50/etc with an invariant plural. Why? We have a whole article about Linguistic issues concerning the euro that explains that there are a wide variety of national conventions to express the plural. It would be intolerable for the ECB to select the appended-S convention used in the states along the western sea-board for preferential treatment. Yes, it is a lame discussion, and even lamer to escalate it. What next, plural of pound to be "pound" because some people in Ireland (and parts of England) say "twenty five pound". And just for reference, fr:Euro uses "euros" without any debate - there is even a heading Les pièces et les billets en euros (lit:The coins and notes in euros). --Red King 20:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

• In Portuguese Euros is the only plural that is used and was never an issue. The use of Dois euro (English: "two Euro") is unthinkable and never occurs both in the speach and in written forms (including checks, etc.). While the pronunciation of Euro is a reallistic issue, and some pronunce euro/euros (the "official" pronunciation) while others euru/eurus (Portuguese natural pronunciation). We don't need to tag the article because of that. --Pedro 21:25, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Has any one read the Interinstitutional style guide of the europa web site. It states the prefered english plural is cents and euros. I believe the plural without an s is all R.T.E's fault. As the national TV and radio broadcaster for Ireland it wields a lot of "cultural" power. From the introduction of the euro onward they referred to the euro plural without an s in all scripted official programs like news etc. I'd love to know who sets RTE's official grammar policy and why they chose to foist the no s plural on the world. I remember seeing a program on RTE some time ago about the News and they do have a person that they refer to for pronunciation and grammatical queries. I believe they got the stupid idea came from the actual notes where it says "10 euro" --Trounce 12:32, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

In Germany there was a discussion about euro or euros in 2002. It lasted about 1 month or so. Then the people of media, politics and others with influence seemed to decide that they have to wait for how the average people would use it. Very quickly it was a common sense to use euro for plural as we already did for Dollar (dollars), Pfund (pounds) or Deutsche Mark (not Deutsche Marks). A fun-intended plural came up euronen :-) But it never made its way do become dominant in daily use.

Development warning

I placed a warning on the top of the page that this page is currently under development. This is to prevent people from changing the euro/euros status without reading the talk page. Personally I find the issue a little bit annoying, if you cannot resolve this within the next three weeks, I will put this article in front of the arbitration comittee, to reach a final conclusion. Bfg 18:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

What is annoying is that there was discussion about this matter, and the consensus was that the plural euros should be used on the English-language Wikipedia. I prefer to keep to that consensus, which is why I revert. This isn't a new issue; it isn't a sudden revert war. The people who keep coming in and changing to the s-less plural have not read [[3]] or [[4]]. That is what is annoying. I don't think this "development warning" prevents people from changing the plural, and I don't think arbitration will prevent new people from changing it in future. So what I have been doing is reverting to euros and pointing to previous consensus. Evertype 07:19, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Evertype. There is no real dispute. The large majority are satisfied with the natural plural: any new editor can be referred to previous discussion. This time is merely unusual because one editor refuses to accept the consensus view. Development warning is overkill. --Red King 20:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Historical table

I disgree with this change [5] , in fact, this table should only include the founding currencies of the euro, as it was unveileid when the Euro was to be launched. it is an historical table, so Slovenia should not be included, there's the Greek issue, but the best is also to exclude Greece.--Pedro 21:31, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes and no. I would support adding a division line into the table, for the purpose of clarifying which were the "original" currencies, and which had subsequently been absorbed/renounced/etc. samwaltz 21:45, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Samwaltz. --Chochopk 00:56, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would say that it is useful to have all currencies in the same list. If you are uncertain in which order, and when, certain currencies were replaced, you might have to look at a lot of different places. (218.228.195.44 01:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC))

samwaltz's idea is the best. --Pedro 17:14, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I have modified the table, added an extra column with de exact day the rate was announced. A black line divides the 10(BEF=LUF) original currencies of the eurozone with other currencies that joined later. Thewikipedian 22:22, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Google friendly?

I'm going to put the infobox back in the upperright corner. I don't know what google friendly means but I don't think we're editing articlas so googlers can find them in 5 seconds, I though ti was to make the artical look good? — HurricaneDevon @ 00:35, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Google friendly means that google can display the opening para, not some illegible gobbledygook. We should encourage people searching for info about the euro to come here. --Red King 23:42, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Inclusion of EU as a user of euro?

I added the EU as a user of euro a while back, but Red King removed it. But shouldn't it be included, as, as noted on the EU's own article, in many areas the EU resembles a federation AND the EU - when carrying out matters of its own - uses only euro. So shouldn't it be there? - ^Рэд_хот 15:08, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There are two problems with including it.

1. The EU may "resemble" a federation in some respects (but does not in many others). What is important is the legal status and legally the EU is not a federation.
2. More importantly, a significant number of members of the Union do not use the euro, so it would be misleading to include the EU for as long as that remains the case.

--Red King 23:44, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Not to be rude, but you keep ignoring the fact that I stated, the EU itself. The EU doesn't dissappear when you subtract the states. Its not an abstract association, it does have physical things. Yes I agree including EU is misleading but a note of somesort should suffice. Shouldn't it? Or instead to eliminate the misleading aspect, you could just name the institutions which use it. But that's ridiculously long. - ^Рэд_хот 10:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

But "the EU itself" only exists as a free association of member states and has no absolute existence (but I agree, it's not an abstract association either, and does have certain characteristics in common with a federation like Canada or Australia). But I really can't see how you can say "the EU uses the euro" when not all of it does so. (Conversely, when all of it does do so, you would be absolutely correct to list it). As a parallel, would you say that NAFTA uses the US Dollar? I suspect that there are many Canadians and Mexicans who might object!

Though now that I think of it, it does use the euro to determine CAP payments - there is no such thing as the green pound any more. So I do see whay you are driving at. I just think that there are major problems with putting it in the summary. If an American arrived in London or Stockholm with a fistful of euros exepcting to use them in the EU, they'd be directed to the nearest bank to change them. But if a European went to the US with a fistful of US dollars, they could use them in any state of the Union--Red King 19:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Still, the EU as an organisation does use the euro, and I'd be strongly in favour of listing it in the template. —Nightstallion (?) 12:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

My approach to this issue is this: As of yet, the EU doesn't have legal personality. However, the two remaining European Communities do have legal personality, and the Union makes use of those legal personalities. Now, what are these Communities? As a matter of international law, they are not states, they are international organizations. Of course, they are quite unlike (much more state-like) than any other international organization ever, but they are still nonetheless international organizations. And, as far as international organizations go, they are not alone in using a currency -- almost every international organization has used one or more currencies in its operation, the most important of which is its unit of account. The most common unit of account for an international organization would probably be the US Dollar, but other national currencies are/have been used, as have non-currency units of account, such as SDRs. Indeed, before the introduction of the Euro, the Communities used the ECU as its unit of account. Anyway, the question is this -- on the page of a currency, do we mention which international organizations use it as its unit of account, or otherwise use it? Generally no; although in this particular case a mention would probably be in order. Second question: on the page of a currency, do we list the international organizations which use in the same list as the states which use it? No. Therefore, what should we do? We should mention in this article in the verbiage that the EU uses the Euro as its main working currency and unit of account; but we should not list the EU in the list of countries which use it. If it is to be listed at all, it should be listed with some clear separation, so its clear its not part of the list of countries which use it, but a separate thing... --SJK 13:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with some indication of the situation, if it was to be included in the list. One of the main reasons I want the EU on the list is because none of the eurozone states control or own the euro, put simply: you couldn't call it France's (or any other) own currency. But you could call it the EU's currency. It was created by the EU. It's controlled by the EU. It is used by the EU. For any state in the eurozone, you can only really say the first and last, and even to say the first would be a bit misleading. - ^Рэд_хот 19:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Slovenian tolar not fixed?

Why does the article say the Slovenian tolar is fixed when the European Central Bank's exchange rates against it are still listed and still varying from day to day. Yes, only marginally but varying nonetheless[6]. - ^Рэд_хот 15:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

In that case, it is factually incorrect and you should delete it. --Red King 23:45, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok. I just wasn't sure if the ECB was going crazy! But seriously, I was hoping putting it here first would encourage someone to show the source that they used, to see exactly what it said. - ^Рэд_хот 10:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I believe the fixed exchange rate agreed upon at the meeting will come in force January 1, 2007, and until then the Slovenian tolar floats freely. After checking the Bank of Slovenia's website, it seems that is indeed the case (http://www.bsi.si/en/). edolen1 12:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Not that I disagree, since that's what I seem to get from their site too, but that seems very unlikely. That mean's that although they have a rate agreed, people could very easily play the fact that it's rate from 1 Jan '07 is fixed. I can't think of exactly how that can be exploited, but I'm sure there's some way to exploit it. - ^Рэд_хот 19:17, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

And that playing would explain why any changes in value would be only marginal at this point, if you know a currency is going to be worth a certain ammount at a certain time in the future and its cheaper than that now you are going to buy. Likewise if its more expensive now than it will be when its fixed people will sell. Plugwash 11:04, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but that marginal bit could be quite a lot if you're dealing with a lot of money. Should the rate from 2007 be readded since its been clarified now. Like saying that it will be fixed from 2007. - ;^Рэд_хот 13:16, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Frequently And Infrequently Used

This needs to be rewritten. In my recent trip to Greece, the €100 bill was not all that uncommon. The situation with coins is more tricky. In 2003 in the Netherlands, only a store called C&A priced in a way that 1c and 2c coins were needed. So they were rare even back then. As for Greece, I have just returned from a trip there and I have seen a reversal. Back in Spring 2002 and in Spring 2003, almost everywhere, 1c and 2c coins and often even 5c coins were omitted from change. I remember characteristically an item costing €1.17, rang up for €1.17, and then the cashier demanded €1.20. Now, however, almost always you get correct change to the last cent. --Q43 16:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Weird that all currency is in there. (1 and 2 cent coins are used both frequently and rarely). So half of it is used frequently, half rarely, non of it occasionally....

I would suggest removing the 100 euro bill from the rarely list, but not adding it to the frequent list.

The coins are more complex, they are indeed being phased out in the Netherlands and Finland (amounts are rounded to nearest 5 cents). Although still legal currency; they are rarely used nowadays. Arnoutf 19:06, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Ceuta & Melilla

Do the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta & Melilla have the Euro? Should this be mentioned? (JROBBO 04:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC))

Ceuta and Melilla are legally part of Spain. --Red King 20:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Macroeconomic Stability

Heh, I'm finally learning how to use the editing tools at Wikipedia. I didn't realize there were whole discussions on articles hiding behind the articles themselves. Anyway, since my edits were quite substantial in some sections, I thought some folks might like a little more justification. I rewrote much of the section called "Macroeconomic Stability" with the following goals in mind:

- Shortening it (previous editors note that the article is too long) - Removing topics addressed in other parts of the article - Couching the discussion in the language of modern economics (i.e. using terms such as Seignorage, which can succinctly describe a policy that previous authors have used much more lengthy terms to describe) - Removing irrelevent topics (there are all sorts of weird references to this social market economy, the point of their inclusion is clearly lost on me) - Focusing the section on the purported macreconomic benefits of reduced inflation and reduced expected inflation

While I think most of the article is reasonably accurate and well-written (if plagued by the occaisional loopy economic argument), this particular section was disasterously confusing and clearly written separately from most of the rest of the article. Anyway, I'd be much obliged for more fixes as well as further discussion. Cheers.

More edits

I'm trying to prune out some of the weirder economic assertions out of here while preserving all of the established facts and some of the well-regarded theories (i.e. those that can be traced to a reputable textbook of some form).

I've created a couple of goofs I'll fix later when I have a moment... for example, there's a reference to "subsidization" in the oil section which is perfectly accurate, but makes no sense in the context of the article anymore. I was a little heavy handed in my previous edit. I'll fix it shortly. Jelklan 17:02, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Update:

Integrated information about "fiscal federalism", which applies to the U.S. but not the EU—at least not to the same degree.

Seignorage revenue is rather substantial for Europe if the euro is adopted as a new international reserve currency. Appended a small paragraph in "A new reserve currency."

In the ===Euro and petroleum=== section, I consolidated a couple of short paragraphs into one larger, more readable one (hopefully), deleting a few facts that seemed better suited to the articles on oil, petroeuros or whatever.

Jelklan 17:45, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

1 and 2 cents in Ireland

Someone put "1 and 2 cent coins are rarely used in Ireland" in the infobox. Is it true? What I heard is the contrary, that they use the lower value coins more than other eurozone members. But I have no source. Neither "Euro coins" or "Irish euro coins" mentions anything about it. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 21:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Nope, it's nonsense. We use 1¢ and 2¢ coins all the time in Ireland. Evertype 21:45, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I'm removing it now (was it already removed? If it was, it has been re-added, so I'm removing it again). - ^Рэд_хот 14:37, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

We are also using the €0.01 and €0.02 coins here in Belgium... I wonder why it's out of use in the EU. Thunderhawk89 12:58, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Recently I was in both the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Netherlands all shops rounded the total to a multiple of EUR 0,10 or EUR 0,05, so my EUR 0,01 and 0,02 coins were useless. However, in Belgium I was given a EUR 0,01 coin as change. So the article seems to be wrong when it claims "1 and 2 cents (only in Finland and the Netherlands)". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.131.176.54 (talk • contribs) 10:24, 6 November 2006

No, the article is not wrong. It says 1 and 2 cent coins are rarely used only in Finland and the Netherlands, which means 1 and 2 cent coins are commonly used everywhere else. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I modified the phrasing. The 1 and 2 cents were never used in Finland--the Finns didn't even want to coin them, but were told they had to strike a nominal amount, which were sold to collectors (they are not rarities but command a premium). The 1 and 2 cents were effectively withdrawn in the Netherlands around 2005. They remain a legal tender, but by law, prices that you pay are rounded. You can pay using them, but the price will still be rounded. So if you buy two items at the supermarket, each costing 42c, you will pay 85c no matter how you pay. And when I exchanged guilders for euros at a branch of the central bank, they gave me the exchange to the last cent. As a practical matter, I should add, it is my experience (I'm just saying this, I'm not adding it), that the only place that prices are other than in multiples of 5c is the supermarket, and I've travelled in nine of the twelve since the introduction of the Euro.--Wehwalt 14:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

What about gasoline and interest generated from saving account? And by 9 of 12, u mean the 12 provinces of the Netherlands? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 16:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

If cash is involved, it is rounded. I don't think things paid for with credit cards, or interest at banks, is rounded. My hotel bill was to the cent. And I meant 9 of the 12 countries which went to the Euro in 2002.--Wehwalt 14:55, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

For gasoline and diesel, of course only the total amount is rounded. The price per litre has cents and often tenths of cents (usually 9 tenths). --BIL 00:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Correct. If you bought 44.47 euros of gasoline, the per litre price might be 107.9 cents, and you would pay 44.45 euros. I should have excluded gasoline and other things sold on a per litre/kilo basis.--Wehwalt 17:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Wehwalt, is it all of eurozone, or just the Netherlands and Finland? Last time I visited Paris in 2003, 1 & 2 cent coins are still used in the supermarkets for small items. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 19:12, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Just those two countries.--Wehwalt 23:30, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Even in Australia, even though we dont use the 1 and 2 cents, prices for cash are rounded to the closest 5 cents, but with petrol, supermarkets, phone, gas etc they are still quoted in 1 and 2 cents for the exact price. So is this the same senario for the Euro? Enlil Ninlil 04:29, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes.--Wehwalt 06:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

... only in the Netherlands and Finland, though. —Nightstallion (?) 21:47, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Placement of the currency sign

Placement of the currency sign varies from nation to nation. While the official recommendation is to place it before the number (contravening the general ISO recommendation to place unit symbol after the number), people in many countries have kept the placement of their former currencies.

• I say: placement varies with mood. I usually put it before the number and many companies also does that, but most people put it after the number (the former currency style). So I don't think that statement is correct. -Pedro 10:13, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Bigfoto link

I reinstated the bigfoto link to comply with the copyright on the picture entitled Euromoney.jpg. I felt it was worth using this picture as the previous picture had been used twice. If the consensus is that this arrangement is not appropriate then both the link and the photo can be removed. Agnellous 08:44, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I've raised the question in Commons of whether a license with these terms is compatible with Wikipedia at all. Notinasnaid 09:01, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

The source is already mentioned on the image page. I was wondering if citing it again on the article would be necessary. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 09:21, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I took a creative approach to this problem and replaced the picture with a picture I took myself. Hope that's alright.. Avij 09:09, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I assume that's Image:Euro banknotes and coins.jpg. If so, well done on the thorny legal question of whether we can show banknotes on screen. Though I wonder if there is a pending issue of claiming public domain on a photo exclusively comprising copyright works? (Something for someone who understands US copyright law a lot better than me...) Notinasnaid 09:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

{{Money-EU}} gives

Template:Money-EU

{{Money-EU banknote}}, for images of euro banknotes.

{{Money-EU coin common}}, for images of the common (reverse) side of euro coins

{{Money-EU coin national}}, for images of the national (obverse) side of euro coins

The image above depicts a unit of currency issued by the European Central Bank (ECB). The copyrights of this design belongs to: the ECB (for bank notes), and its use is permitted by ECB, "as long as reproductions in advertising or illustrations cannot be mistaken for genuine banknotes". [7] the European Commission (for the common (reverse) side of coins). The Commission permits reproduction in a format without relief (drawings, paintings, films) provided they are not detrimental to the image of the euro. [8] a national agency of the issuing country (for the national (obverse) side of coins) If the use of this image in the English-language Wikipedia is not explicitly allowed as stated above, it is believed that using this image for commentary or criticism relating to the image of the currency itself. for identification of the stamp or currency, not its subject. on the English-language Wikipedia, hosted on servers in the United States by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law, as such display does not significantly impede the right of the copyright holder to sell the copyrighted material, is not being used to generate profit in this context, and presents ideas that cannot be exhibited otherwise. See Wikipedia:Non-free content and fair use rationale. To the uploader: please add a detailed fair use rationale for each use, as described on Wikipedia:Image description page, as well as the source of the work and copyright information.

Euro/Archive 4

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 11:50, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

You're obviously right. I'm merely stating that I have abandoned all rights to that picture, but other restrictions and copyrights may apply. I guess this sentence from {{PD-self}} applies: I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law. (emphasis mine). I've now slapped the {{Money-EU}} template to the license section of that pic to (hopefully) clarify the issue. Oh, I had a closer look at the picture and thought that the fiver at the bottom of the page was 'too visible'. I rearranged the setting a little and took a new photo, which also appears to be a little bit sharper than the previous photo. As my account is too new in commons, I had to upload it with a new filename, thus Image:Euro coins and banknotes.jpg. I'll try to get rid of the old picture.. Avij 12:40, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Too long?

Does anyone else think this article needs some liposuction? It's gotten very bulky, but I always get the impression that it could say what it says in an article about half the size (a lot of redundant sentences, or ones that belong elsewhere). Anyone else agree? Personally I like the Dutch article. Its not too small, and not too large (our problem) and just looks nice and neat. - ^Рэд_хот 12:18, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This article will always be long. The problem I see is repetition of data, notably with Eurozone and Currencies related to the euro. These data should be move/merged, or the tables should be templatified. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 18:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. But I think that the problem isn't a straight-cut one. I think a lot of it stems from IPs with no regard for Wikipedia policy (a lot of high-profile articles seem to have the same problem). But I think that we could try and cut it out. But we'd probably have to make a list (and of course see what others think) - ^Рэд_хот 19:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

As some point, I'd like to consolidate a lot of the economics stuff in here. Maybe I'll try to do that now. Let me know if you see any obvious problems, I'm going to "be bold" as the wiki page suggests and hopefully there will be some good feedback... Jelklan 04:13, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, Jelklan. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:32, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Okay, round one is done. Any comments, updates, fixes, etc., please post.Jelklan 04:58, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Next I suggest clearing out 90% of the Eurozone section, reducing it to a stub that directs readers (and editors!) to the Eurozone article. After that, the Effects section could become a separate article too. --Red King 16:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Exchange rate

I will make my case as to why quoting exchange rate is necessary.

1. The relative value of a currency should be mentioned. There's no question about that
2. If I don't do it, some IP user will
3. So instead of one format per currency, I provide a platform that can be applied to all currency pages.
4. So why quoting the precise value of a particular day?

• Right now it's 1.25095 USD, and I don't see a reason to round it arbitrarily to 1.25 or 1.3
• We cannot predict the future, but by providing a latest precise value, the current value would be, on average, the closest figure to the future value, assuming the future value follows a normal distribution where the mean is the current value and the longer it is in the future, the wider the standard deviation is.
• And by the assumption on the standard deviation, the date also provides some implied information. The older it is, the more "off" the value could be.

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 13:28, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

This all seems to come down to "The relative value of a currency should be mentioned". There is a question, I am raising it. "If I don't do it, some IP user will" is not an argument either way. Of course, if it is actually required, a uniform standard is highly desirable, but that is getting ahead in the debate. So, what is it for? From my perspective, it leaped out of the article as being completely unencyclopedic. The world outside Wikipedia exists, and can provide today's currency values any time. Also as an editor, what am I seeing? An invitation to update the numbers? A frozen snapshot, never to change? Or something that belongs to a particular person to update when they have time? A historical table of values might be useful, though I suspect we should really just cite one rather than reproduce one. I cannot think of any similar precedent (but of course Wikipedia is big and it's easy to miss big things). Thoughts, anyone? Notinasnaid 10:39, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

So there are several issues I would like to address. "If I don't do it, some IP user will" may not be a very strong argument, so forget about that. IMHO, the value of a currency is not unencyclopedic and falls into the world of Wikipedia. Is it not an important data of a currency? So you might be wondering, it's changing every second (well.. yeah, when the market is open). Population of a country and revenue of a company are also ever changing. But these data are still included on Wikipedia. Something being constantly changing doesn't mean it's it's unencyclopedic. It's just that population and revenue aren't published as often and that makes editor from frequently updating. So "an invitation to update the numbers"? Yes, this is a problem. I originally intended the number to be updated somewhere between monthly or weekly, update whenever there is other updates. But obviously I have no control over people. Currently the best way i can think of is something like having template subpages for each currency and transclude them on the currency pages. This way, it's not so obvious how to edit to a random IP user, and edit history would be separated. But the downside of that is the data may become stale if someone who knows how to edit is not around for a long time. To address that, I'm thinking about making a bot. But I'm still debating (with myself). Please trust me when I say I've put a lot of thought into this exchange rate thing. And I do hope that people reading this join the discussion. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 12:22, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Strange as it may seem, I don't find anything in the United States Dollar article that gives its exchange rates. Why should this article be any different? --Red King 19:58, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Right now it's next to the $2 image. And please use lower case for currency unit in article space, as it is grammatically correct. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 20:47, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Excuse me, I forgot that the relative position is different based on your display resolution. Anyway, the exchange rate of USD is right above its "See also" section. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 20:53, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, found it after United States dollar#Factors influencing the dollar price. --Red King 16:18, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Principle of quoting exchange rate on an arbitrary date

IMO, it is not a good idea in principle to quote exchange rates as at some arbitrary date. It is not sustainable and not encylopedic. An annual average is far more useful.

• It is not sustainable because it is unrealistic to expect that it will be revised for all currencies every day. Anyone who needs to know the actual daily rate will use a reliable source like XE.COM or OANDA.COM
• It is not encyclopedic because, by capturing the rate on an arbitrary date, no useful understanding of long term price is conveyed to the reader.

The historical exchange rates (since 1990) that are given in Exchange rates section of the Economy of the United Kingdom entry. are far more useful. Spikes are smoothed and the reader gets a far better idea of the relative prices and how they move over time. It only needs to be updated once a year and the exact date is not critical.--Red King 16:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

Well said. I would like to hear more opinions from others. Please discuss at Template talk:Exchange Rate. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 16:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

First use trivia

Says now on the article: "On 1 January 2002, the first purchase involving euros occurred on Réunion island when officials bought a bag of lychees at a market."

This is pretty much factual; I wrote a node about this in Everything2, however, with a bit of research; However, I didn't really mark my sources better than "Yahoo! News", so I believe I read a Reuters article about this or something. Someone could dig that out.

Also, there was Euronews coverage about the first use of euros in continental europe: Costas Simitis withdrew money from ATM in Greece, and Sauli Niinistö bought a cup of coffee for 1€ in Finland. In the live broadcast by Yleisradio at the time, they also interviewed him, and he decided to call Simitis at the same time to wish happy new year and joked about how they were now highly qualified to talk about use of euro currency.

Wonder if we can find exact sources for these? --wwwwolf (barks/growls) 10:46, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

These may be useful as "notable" but not "first" use. The bar I was in in Amsterdam gave out change in Euro from about 8pm on 31/12/2001, and some were even earlier [anonymous] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.120.161.13 (talk • contribs) 14:12, 23 April 2007

Yes, but those were not official and technically invalid since the coins were not yet a legal tender. I'll work on the phrasing, though.--Wehwalt 15:16, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent addition to the Criticism section

I'm talking about [9]. I feel that the wording can be misleading. Assuming the national central banks were truly independent before euro, then it is the central banks, not countries that "surrendered" the ability of making policies. And they didn't "surrender" that completely. If I'm not mistaken, ECB policies are still made by representatives of all members.

Sovereign governments have entrusted the economic health of their countries to a largely independent entity which may not have the best interests of those countries in mind.

It sounds like ECB might sacrifice the interest of someone for the "greater good" (and by sacrifice, I mean to hurt). IMHO, this is hardly going to happen. And the implication of that is like "for Germany to win, Slovenia has to lose". What about "the policies may not be ideal..."

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 04:06, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Different economies in Europe have different needs, maybe one is over-heating and another is struggling. The policies adopted by the ECB will have to compromise one or both of their needs to some extent. This won't always be the case, but it can, and arguably has happened. Peregrine981 17:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I think what I meant to convey is that they are surrendering their sovereignty to an organization that may, at times, have competing interests. For example, perhaps there were large riots in France that deterred investment, then France might be best served by lower interest rate, a policy that might not be compatible with (a) the ECB's mandate to keep inflation low or (b) some other country in which there is a very high level of investment. Did that come through in the way I wrote it? No, I think you're right about that and it does need a bit of a rewrite. Are there competing interests? Absolutely. Germany is in the curious position right now of wanting looser monetary policy to try to jumpstart a rather sluggish economy, which is at odds with a large number of other's members desires. This is kind of ironic largely because Germany for so long pursued a very tight monetary policy. 68.77.21.117 00:02, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Azores, Madeira, and Canary Islands

Should these places be mentioned as users of the euro? They do use it according to their articles. Also according to the same articles they are all autonomous regions of Spain.AussieDingo1983 12:58, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

• Say what?! So much ignorance in a single sentence. -Pedro 15:15, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Please be civil, Pedro. To answer AussieDingo1983's question,

Place	Status	Sovereignty	Closest continent	mentioned in euro
Azores	Autonomous region	Portugal	Europe	No
Madeira	Autonomous region	Portugal	Africa	yes, as part of currencies of Africa nav box
Canary Islands	Autonomous community	Spain	Africa	yes, as part of currencies of Africa nav box

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:44, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

printer

After making use of the new infobox parameter to enable multiple listing of printer website, I realized it is a little cluttered. I am leaning toward merging it with euro banknotes, and have the infobox of euro referring to it. However, the merging must be done with the upmost care. There is a small contradiction. Euro says "Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato" (Zecca) for the Italian printer, while euro banknotes says "Banca d'Italia". --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 09:54, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Combining sections

I don't really see why sections 3 and 4 are separate... they're all about the economics of adopting a single currency. I'll happily volunteer to merge the two sections, assuming people aren't too concerned about that. Also, there's that little section 6, which hardly seems to justify its own space. Since the first section talks about the design and selection of the names and symbols and everything, perhaps it would be best if it were moved in there? I guess what I was kind of envisioning here is a more spartan organization of this article: (1) Talk about the characteristics of the euro, naming conventions, etc. (2) The history of the union (3) The economics of it all (4) Statistics / figures (5) Trivia followed by notes and whatnot I mean this more as a proposal to get the ball rolling... I'm constantly jarred by the length of the contents up top and the number of little sections and subsections. Anyway, let me know what you think. Jelklan 07:12, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah that sounds fine to me. I'd say do it - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 13:07, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Thank you to whoever removed the spot rate quotes, given that they are more timely and accurately found in the link in that section. Jelklan 06:01, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Exchange rates formatting

Why has the exchange rates' format suddenly changed in the Against other major currencies section? I thought the standard way was to show it as "main currency in question"/other currency, but now lots of reversals have been added in brackets, and in some cases they are the only ones. i.e. There are lots of rates as $/€. I thought its meant to be the other way around since that's how banks do it (local/foreign) - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 15:23, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Changeover to the Euro

Seems to me we need a section, or perhaps an article, detailing the changeover from the legacy currencies to the Euro, the problems that were supposed to erupt on 1 January 2002 and mostly didn't, and detailing the policies on exchange of legacy currency. It should probably be a separate article.--Wehwalt 14:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I would love to see that article. It would be nice to reorganize all these euro related article such as Eurozone, Linguistic issues concerning the euro, Currencies related to the euro, etc. If I have time, I will make a nav box. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 16:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I will work on it. "Introduction of the Euro" seems to be the best title. Start with the fixing of the exchange rates, through to the withdrawal and demonitization of the legacy currencies. --Wehwalt 08:22, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

lower case "euro" please. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 19:38, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Adopting euro

For those of you who are interested in making changes on 1 January 2007, please see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Numismatics. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 13:22, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Monaco, San Marino and Vatican City

Since the introductory paragraph states that the Euro is the official currency of the European states of...', I think those three states should be included as well. They don't just "use" it, but it is their official currency. The bilateral agreement between the Vatican and the EU explicitly states (Art 1) that with Jan 1, 1999 the Euro became the Vatican's official currency and is legal tender starting from Jan 1, 2002. (see [10]) Gugganij 13:15, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

True, but those 3 countries aren't represented in the managing board of the ECB, at the opposite of the 13 official members. They should indeed appear, but in a specific category apart from the 13 EMU members in order to avoid such a confusion. Metropolitan 17:01, 4 January 2007.

Interestingly, the countries (and also Andorra) are not even members of the EU. Arnoutf 19:12, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Bulgaria and Romania in ERM II

As of 7 January 2007 I have not seen information that Bulgaria and Romania have become part of ERM II. As they can join the Euro only if they have been in officially in ERM II years, the exact date matter. Bulgaria is de facto member for a while, but this is irrelevant. Herzog Tryn 16:54, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Serbian & Bulgarian spelling

Why are there two listings of exactly the same spelling for the Euro name in Bulgarian and Serbian? Wouldn't it be more logical to use the same spelling one time, but put "Bulgarian and Serbian" or "cyrillic" or something along those lines in parentheses? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.195.199.146 (talk) 16:00, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

I have taken the above out. Greek is an official EU language and the Greek name appears on the notes, but if we were to include every language with speakers in the EU that does not spell the name 'euro', the list would grow rather long. Siswrn 21:09, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the question is, what should we include on the infobox, in general. I believe the following procedure makes the most sense.

1. Find the countries/territories that use this currency, officially or unilateraly
2. What are the languages spoken there, at the national level.

This procedure can be applies to the United States dollar too. The list for euro can be large. But this can be shortened if we consolidate on script and spelling. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 18:27, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I changed the spelling of the word "euro" in the Greek alphabet from ευρώ to ευρω, because the former is the Greek language spelling, and the latter is the Greek alphabet spelling. For the same reason I changed the indication "Bulgarian" to "Cyrillic". The official spelling is language indifferent, only there are three official alphabets in use in the EU. User:BearPig 20:30, 8 february 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't describe the recent edits on the language in infobox an "edit war". But if we don't come to an conclusion, this article will again become lame. Some people say that (in Serbian) should not be listed because Serbian is not an official language of the EU. However, I have to say that we now live in the age where political entities and monetary zones borders do not necessarily lie together. Nor is one categorization a superset of the other. There are EU members that do not use the euro. There are euro users that are not members the EU. Since this article is about the currency, the language of the users should be listed. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:39, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be Bulgarian NOT Serbian. Serbia is not an EU members and thus Serbian is NOT an official language. Furthermore, Montenegro uses euros WITHOUT any permission by the ECB. Not to mention that many Montenegrins will refer ro their language as Montenegrin and not Serbian. When it comes to languages in former Yugoslavia I think we should PASS, as this whole deal is quite confusing. Bulgarian cyrilic, yeas ONLY BULGARIAN CYRILLIC is an official script (along Latin and Greek). There is no single cyrillic way to write down euro - ask the Ukranians or the Belarussians...they spell it diferently. Serbian cyrillic alphabet is different from Bulgarian AND in Montenegro and Serbia the Latin alphabet has an equal status to that of the cyrillic so NO need to have it in Serbian cyrillic AT ALL. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.97.217.126 (talk • contribs) 02:34, 16 February 2007

Yes, we know that Bulgarian is an official language of the EU and Serbian is not. Nobody is disputing that. But read my previous post. This is an currency article, not about the Union. Yes, Montenegro adapted the euro unilaterally. But they don't need the permission to do so. Yes, there are two scripts to write Serbian. So (Cyrillic Serbian). --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 16:09, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the EURO is the currency of the EU, so it is totally related. Serbian has absolutely NO status within the Euro zone. Yes, they don't have to go in any agreement to use the euro but they MUST go in one in order to become part of the eurozone. Again, euros are NOT used in Serbia, only in independent Monetenegro where the latin, not cyrillic script are used. Kosovo, though de jure part of Serbia is an "Albanian" territory, so Albanian is used. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 152.97.217.126 (talk) 17:07, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

Euro is the currency of the EU, except the U.K. and Danmark, and not of the new members until they meet a certain criteria. And anyone can unilaterally adapt it. So you see the relationship isn't exactly a straight forward 1 to 1. If Cyrillic Serbian is not used at all in Monetenegro or Kosovo, then I think евро should be deleted completely. However, if Cyrillic Serbian has de jure official status in any of these two entities, then it should be included. I have already checked the Albanian spelling of euro, which is also euro. It's already covered. I don't know how many time do I have to say this, this is a currency article. If you insist that евро in the infobox should be labeled as Bulgarian, why don't you add the Latvian spelling eiro, the Lithuanian spelling euras, and the Maltese spelling ewro? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 18:18, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

done.

This Talk is turning into a national(ist) battle! Please stick to the official rules of the European Central Bank, and omit national variations! Such national variations also exist in Latin alphabet European languages, but are also not mentioned here.

The official Latin alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is euro, however in the German national language it is written as Euro, in the Latvian national language it is written as eiro, in the Lithuanian national language it is written as euras, in the Hungarian national language it is written as euró, in the Slovenian national language it is written as evro, and in the Maltese national language it is written as ewro.

The official Greek alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is ευρω, however in the Greek and Cypriot national language it is written as ευρώ.

The proposed official Cyrillic alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is еуро (transcript of "euro"), however Bulgaria disputes this and proposes евро (transcript of "evro"), as this is the pronounciation and spelling derived from the word "Europe" in the Bulgarian national language and other Cyrillic alphabet languages (notably in the potential official EU languages Serbian and Macedonian; in the further potential official EU language Ukrainian it is however written as євро); the matter is currently not resolved yet, so I propose to mention both spellings.

I added/moved the above national variations in/to footnotes. User:BearPig 21:51, 26 february 2007 (UTC)

I personally strongly disagree with the fact that Euro is at any means associated with serbia an the serbian alphabet. First of all Serbia is Neither part of the EU Nor part of the EMU! Second, just because the Serbians use Euro that doesn't make it necessary use describe how the Serbian call and write Euro. It would be the same to differ between DM and 'Serbian DM' just because the Deutsche Mark was widely used in Jugoslavia during the embargo's emposed on that country. Third of all: Bulgaria is intending to enter the European Monetary Union in 2010, and besides the Bulgarian language is an OFFICIAL of the Union so the term used should be 'Bulgarian Cyrillic'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Noodles Paine (talk • contribs) 20:38, 25 March 2007

I don't understand why you and some others think that "who it is intended to" is a better criterion than "who actually uses it". --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Neither do I understand your type of thinking. And do you really think that in Bulgaria no one has seen a Euro, that is no one uses it? It would be a very naive and superficial idea of you. The fact that the Bulgarian currency is pegged to Euro, along with the signing of a treaty of the Bulgarian government to start using it as a main currency are in my opinion strong arguments against your point. That means that soon the Bulgarian spelling would stand on the Euro banknote, and the Bulgarian National Bank would participate in taking decisions concerning the currency. Also a great part of the European investments in the region are made in Bulgaria, and I think you may correctly guess on your own in what kind of currency they are made. I think your biggest mistake is that you cannot understand the Balkan type of thinking. Such things really matter for the people on the Peninsula, and in the past many conflicts have arisen from far more trivial matters.I think I made my point, so please consider changing the term Serbian to Bulgarian, so that we don't waste our time with nonsense anymore. (141.70.82.221 10:03, 26 March 2007 (UTC))

Of course I don't think no one in Bulgaria has seen or heard of the euro. And I know where Bulgaria is going, and that they are participating in policy making. I may not come from the Balkans and probably will never think like a Balkan, but I do understand some of the basics. You said that you don't understand my type of thinking, then let me explain again - There needs to be a consistent rule on the infobox that makes sense and is applicable to all currencies. You can call this an engineer's type of thinking. The standing style guide says "Try to list the translation in all the languages of the "using_countries" attribute below." If you insist on including Bulgarian, the rule has to be rewritten to "Try to list the translation in all the languages of the "using_countries. But if there is a monetary union that is expanding, and the union will soon include a new member, whose language is not used by any of the existing members, include the language of the new member too.".

Make a rule, and then generate data from it. Avoid making rules that fit some data. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:49, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Ok,let's make it clear: you haven't convinced me, I don't like the term Serbian Cyrillic either, but in generally I think I follow your point- as you yourself said- 'engineer's type of thinking' ( which I don't find in way inappropriate, on the contrary :). I just hope I see 'Bulgarian Cyrillic' after the country enters the EMU :). But you should also understand something: Serbia shouldn't be associated at any means with the Union or the currency - at least not at this time. This is entirely my personal point of view, but since Serbia and its government are still refusing to cooperate with the International Court of Law at the Hague to capture some of its ex-military leaders because of their crimes against humanity, I think they are very far away from the main ideas of the Union. That is exactly why the country was denied the possibility to start negotiations for entering EU. Many of the people in Serbia have a very chauvinistic and xenophobe type of thinking, which is regarded as highly inappropriate and incompatible with the European values. You can call this 'moralistic type of thinking'. But probably when writing an Encyclopedia article the engineering type is better as the moralistic can,naturally, be biased :). Noodles Paine 11:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

And if you are willing to compromise, I think that it would be best to leave just 'Cyrillic'. It won't hurt anyones feelings and is as neutral as it can be. Furthermore it doesn't alter or deteriorate the quality of the article, as it doesn't lose any of its 'descriptive value'. Noodles Paine 12:23, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I would like to get this resolve too, and move on to something else. I have no intention of offending anyone or to invoke any emotion. "Cyrillic" could cause a technical problem because euro in Belorussian and Ukrainian are Еўра and Євро. What about adding a footnote in the infobox to explain why евро is Serbian - not because of Serbia is associate with the EU, but because Montenegro adopted the euro unilaterally and Kosovo under UN admin also uses the euro. The same kind of footnote applies to the USD, and others listed on Monetary union. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:06, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose that if it is not a problem with you that would be a good solution. I personally find it appropriate and would be happy to see implemented. Thanks and sorry for wasting your time. Noodles Paine 06:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this Montenegro-Kosovo/Serbian Latin Cyrillic Montenegro-Serbian thing a bit too much? I understand and respect the rules and conventions, but if the whole continent managed to agree on Euro, is it really necessary to emphasize how Serbs differ from the others? And if yes, why not include Latvian and Lithuanian variants? Meelosh 00:14, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone counterargue that Cyrillic Serbian is not at all appropriate in this list? The only script in use for both Montenegrin-Serbian (in Montenegro) and Serbian (in Kosovo) is the Latin script, if I look at the governmental websites of both (http://www.vlada.cg.yu/ and http://www.ks-gov.net/pm/?menuid=&subid=&lingo=3), and consistently on other official websites. Therefore Cyrillic Serbian does not seem to be a "user language". Of course there may be some people in both areas that occasionally use the Cyrillic script, but are there local newspapers or TV stations that use the Cyrillic script? Until such evidence appears, I propose to remove the Cyrillic Serbian reference. 24.132.231.72 20:48, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Why is in the infobox written bulgarian spelling for Euro?? It has no sense at all. Official name for euro are two spelling: EURO and (greek euro). That's it. Very simple. So remove bulgarian spelling.

But if you want keep bulgarian speeling of euro than include all spelling from all official languages of EU.

Is that so simple. --Jonson22 17:20, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Northern league is a far-right party

Northern League is widely considered a far-right party in Italy. Here are some of their opinions as expressed by their leaders and policies:

• Umberto Bossi (leader of the party) himself said that African immigrants, whom he called Bingo-bongos, should not receive popular housing paid for with Lombard money.
• A minister from this party have argued that boats full of immigrants (mostly black and albanian) should be bombed by the Italian Navy rather than allowing them to set foot in Italy.
• In June 2005, at a festival organised by the League, a banner was displayed saying "Rape Pecoraro", (referring to Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, the openly bisexual secretary of the Federation of the Greens).
• In 2005, Mario Borghezio, MP for the League at the European Parliament, was found guilty of arson, for having set on fire the belongings of some immigrants sleeping under a bridge in Turin in 2000.
• Their most quoted reasons for seccession are that northerners are of germanic ("lombardic") and not italian stock.

The Northern League claims they are not far-right. But their actions speak for themselves. Is this a respectable right wing party for you? 84.90.18.136 22:13, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

That discussion should be had at Talk:Lega Nord not here. At the moment, the article Lega Nord does not describe them as a far-right party, rather a separatist right wing party, and we should reflect that here. Far right is a pejorative term that should generally be avoided in favour of more descriptive terms (see here) and if used should only describe neo-Fascist parties. See the article Far right which includes MSI but not LN as far right Italian parties. In this context, calling LN a separtist party is more relevant. AndrewRT(Talk) 00:58, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

'Separatist' is a pejorative term too. Those seeking self-government for XXX are best described as 'XXX nationalists'. Siswrn 22:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I guess you're right. Less pejorative I imagine than far-right. I'll have to think about that one... AndrewRT(Talk) 01:06, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

How do you convert € to $

do you know how to convert Euro to U.S. dollars?? I need to know for a project. Bobrox 22:27, 13 February 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bobrox (talk • contribs) 22:25, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

It varies by the day. If you want to know what it is today, go to somewhere like XE.COM but if you need to know the history, you need somewhere more like OANDA.COM. For example. --Red King 23:30, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

If you mean how to convert euro cash to USD cash, then you better do it in places outside of the U.S. Traditionally, the USD has been the "strongest" currency, so it would be relatively easy to buy/sell USD in other countries with their home currencies. Because every other country is doing so, there is little incentive for Americans to operate Bureau de Change booths. There might be some in a few American airports, but the prices are complete rip-off. Thomas Cook and Travelex are also rip-off (not just in the U.S.) You need to look at the difference between sell and buy price to determine how favorable the price is to you. The "difference" here is actually the ratio between the two. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 00:55, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

OANDA.COM (and no doubt other sites) has a "travellers tools" page that give interbank rates, then typical credit card rates, then buying currency for cash in a bank and maybe travellers cheques/checks. The bid/offer spread widens rapidly. --Red King 20:31, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Euro "sort of" pegged by DKK

Proposal: Add the Danish krone (DKK) to the "pegged by" field in the infobox, and from there link to a footnote that says:

The DKK is "soft-pegged" to the Euro: A fixed exchange rate is defined, but the DKK may deviate ± 2.25% from it. See ERM II.

Reason: I was always wondering if the Euro is pegged by the DKK or not. The "Pegged by" list in the infobox currently doesn't mention it, so I assumed the exchange rate is floating. But it turns out that's not really correct: There is a "theoretical" fixed rate of EUR 1 = DKK 7.46038, and the actual rate is guaranteed to deviate no more than 2.25% from that. That's because the DKK participates in something called the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (see there for details).

I don't want to make that change since I don't know much about finances, but please consider it. Thanks. --193.99.145.162 16:58, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

This has been considered. But if Danish krone is included, then all such currencies should be listed as "bounded-pegged". Can you enumerate all currencies that meet the criteria? Repeat that for the USD? Some central banks, unlike Danmarks Nationalbank, follows an unknown currency and hides their secret formula. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 03:44, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Local name of the euro

This isn't hard people. On the line that says "currency_name_in_local" the only entries should be the translation of all the languages of the "using_countries". The languages that are needed are Greek (since the euro is used in Greece) and Serbian (since the euro is used in Kosovo and Montenegro, where Serbian is an official language). The euro isn't used in Malta, Bulgaria, or Lithuania. Once they adopt the euro and if they don't change the spelling, they will be added to the list. Understood? – Zntrip 05:12, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I concur. But the current result appears to be some compromise between me and 152.97.217.126 from the discussion at #Serbian & Bulgarian spelling. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 16:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Have you taken an euro note in your hands, the only spelling you see on that note are EURO and ΕΥΡΩ, anything else is irrelevant as this is not a dictionary, it is an encyclopedia and the links to the euro entry of the serbian wikipedia are on the left of the page. --giandrea 00:46, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I have taken euro notes and coins in my hand. I know what Wikipedia is not. I know Wikipedia is not a dictionary. And for that reason, irrelevant translations are not included, such as Chinese. Montenegro and Kosovo use the euro. That is why it is included. On the article of France, why is "République française" so prominently displayed in the infobox? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:27, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I completely agree. – Zntrip 01:32, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

To avoid endless discussions we should stick to the official rules of the European Central Bank, and omit national variations! Such national variations also exist in Latin alphabet European languages, but are also not mentioned here. The official Latin alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is euro, however in the German national language it is written as Euro, in the Latvian national language it is written as eiro, in the Lithuanian national language it is written as euras, in the Hungarian national language it is written as euró, in the Slovenian national language it is written as evro, and in the Maltese national language it is written as ewro. The official Greek alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is ευρω, however in the Greek and Cypriot national language it is written as ευρώ. The proposed official Cyrillic alphabet spelling by the European Central Bank is еуро (transcript of "euro"), however Bulgaria disputes this and proposes евро (transcript of "evro"), as this is the pronounciation and spelling derived from the word "Europe" in the Bulgarian national language and other Cyrillic alphabet languages (notably in the potential official EU languages Serbian and Macedonian; in the further potential official EU language Ukrainian it is however written as євро); the matter is currently not resolved yet, so I propose to mention both spellings. I added/moved the above national variations in/to footnotes. User:BearPig 23:34, 26 february 2007 (UTC)

I can't help but to raise more questions. I care a lot, for a better Wikipedia content, about consistency. If you were to generalize this rule you propose on the "other languages" in the currency infobox, how would you do that? What do you propose for super-national currencies like the USD, CFA franc (central and west), East Caribbean dollar? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 03:41, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't see your point. There are no "other languages" in the currency infobox, only official spellings in the three official alphabets of the European Union. The euro is the official currency of the European Union, and these spellings are printed on every euro banknote (not yet for Cyrillic though). Therefore the rule I used is: to mention the official spelling as mentioned on the euro banknotes (or in the case of Cyrillic: as they may appear on the euro banknotes in the near future). So there is no need to mention the spelling in Chinese, Japanese or Arabic characters, nor is there a need to mention a translation in any language other than English. The language of this Wiki-page is English. For completeness sake I mentioned the deviating spellings in the offical languages of the European Union in the footnotes, but they should not be in the main article. User:BearPig 00:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying the Chinese, Japanese, or Arabic translation should be included. There is no question about it. What I'm interested, for the sake of consistency, is what "other languages" to include in the infobox of a super-national currency. Such currency includes the euro, the USD, and more.

Now let's talk about the euro for the moment. You said "is the official currency of the European Union". But under extra scrutiny, we will find that these two sets are not exactly the same:

1. Countries that form the EU
2. Countries that use the euro

They are not exactly the same, nor is one a subset of the other. Denmark and the U.K. are members of the EU, but do not and do not have to use the euro. New members may have to use the euro when their economic and fiscal conditions are met. But not now. Since this article is about the currency, not about the Union, I think the most sensible thing to do in the infobox is to list the translations of the actual users, i.e. the second set. This is a rule that makes sense and can be applied to the USD, the East Caribbean dollar.

This whole thing started with whether евро is Serbian or Bulgarian.

If you insist on using only the scripts that are banknotes, then that could be a problem for other currencies. Let's take the Swiss franc for example. The proper translations of "Swiss franc" are now listed on the article, like "Schweizer Franken" (German). But the adjective "Swiss" is nowhere to be seen on the banknotes, in any language. Then are you suggesting to remove "Schweizer"? Let me give another example: the Singapore dollar. Only the country's name "Singapore" is printed in the 4 official languages. Yet, the infobox contains translation of 3 of the official languages of Singapore other than English. So strictly using what's on the banknotes may be a problem. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I think User:BearPig should first read my point made at the begining of this discussion. The way it was before was in line with current Wikipedia policy that appears on the talk page for the currency infobox template. In the mean time I will revert his edit. – Zntrip 07:39, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Uhm, style guide actually. It's not a Wikipedia policy. These two are different tho.... --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 08:16, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

My mistake, style guide. – Zntrip 22:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, so in a few years this list will be:

Euro (in German)
eiro (in Latvian)
euras (in Lithuanian)
euró (in Hungarian)
evro (in Serbian)/(in Slovene)
ewro (in Maltese)
ευρώ (in Greek)
evro (in Slovene)/(in Serbian)
евро (in Serbian)/(in Bulgarian)
euro (other user languages)

That's fine with me. In order to reflect the current status I added the German spelling "Euro", and "evro" is not only a Serbian spelling but also the Slovenian spelling. Slovenia is using the euro now too.

Chochopk: The euro IS the official currency of the European Union (the intragovernmental organisation) as established by the treaty of Maastricht and ratified by ALL members of the EU, and the current TWO official spellings of the currency are "euro" and "ευρω", and another proposed official spelling is "еуро". All other spellings are NOT official according to the EU treaty. I added the official ECB spellings and the proposed Cyrillic spelling to the main article. User:BearPig 21:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Is it really necessary to have the German spelling? It isn’t spelled differently, it’s just a matter of grammar. I also think that that the “other user languages” is redundant as that should be understood. I’ll wait for replies before changing these. – Zntrip 01:11, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I considered that when I added the German spelling. I remember that there has been some discussion in Germany whether the spelling should be "euro", in conformity with the prescribed spelling of the ECB, or "Euro", in accordance with German grammar. So it was apparently not so obvious that it was just a matter of grammar. But maybe German speakers can clarify this. User:BearPig 18:50, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't heard about that discussion you mention, but it must refer to the fact that all nouns start in a capital letter in German. That rule includes all units like gram or meter and all names of currencies. That said, what the infobox looks like at this point strikes me as silly: There's "Euro" at the top and "Euro (German)" right below that. I can see how you want to mention the funny sausages the Greeks use because that's a name significantly different, but the German name is so close to the English one that you can't even tell the difference (from the infobox). I vote to throw out the line "Euro (German)", it doesn't tell the reader anything relevant and only looks like the Germans wanted a "special mention" to feel important. --193.99.145.162 20:41, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I'll remove the German one than. After all, all nouns are capitalized in German and it isn't a matter of spelling. I'll also remove the "other user languages" since it is redundent. – Zntrip 22:52, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Zntrip. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 01:23, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Rarely Used vs. Frequently Used

In the summary box the article divides the coins and banknotes into frequently used and rarely used. I think this is rather subjective, and varies from country to country. For instance, in Austria the €100 note is common -- in fact it is what many of the bank machines give out if you request €100 or more. However, in other countries this isn't in common use.

Wouldn't it be better to just list the denominations and footnote the fact that certain countries don't mint (or set prices) in terms of 1 or 2 cents?

If the situation of banknote is different from country to country, you can combine the two rows by specifying used_banknotes = €5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200, €500. About coins, I think there is no ambiguity on who uses 1 and 2 cent and who don't. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 19:57, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

How this could be anythin but anecdotal, in the case of banknotes, I don't know. However, I do recall that Portugal does not issue 200 or 500 Euro notes, I forget why, money laundering, probably. Such notes are still valid there. Aside from that, I'm not sure what we could say. I'll look for sources when I get a chance.--Wehwalt 22:17, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

In Portugal, is not issued 100 200 and 500 Euro banknotes, the explanation for this is that in the times of the portuguese escudo the highest note it was the 10 000$00 note, wich is 50€ +/- , so the goverment didb't find the need to do higher value notes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.54.20.58 (talk) 10:20, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't force it if you can't find a source. I would imagine the case of euro is more complex than the USD, where $2 is rarely used pretty much everywhere. The template is designed with flexibility. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:59, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Coulndn't we say that 100Euro is used occasionally, and should hence appear on neither frequent nor rare list? Arnoutf 19:18, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

Why bother then? And we have no evidence it is used more or less frequently than any other high denomination banknote, say the US $100 or the UK fifty pound.--Wehwalt 21:08, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

As I have said before, we can put everything from €5 to €500 in one row called "used banknotes". This intentional ambiguity resolves our endless discussion here. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:09, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction

I may appear an ass for putting contradiction tag everywhere. But finding contradiction is what I'm good at, and what I deem important for Wikipedia.... So... on the target join date of new members:

	Euro	Eurozone	National euro coin article
Bulgaria	2010	2010	second half of 2009 or on 2010-01-01
Hungary	2012+	2010	not 2010
Latvia	2011+	Not before 2010	doesn't say
Czech Rep.	2012+	Not before 2012	unlikely 2010
Poland	2011+	2011	2011 achievable

But I'm not a euro expert. Can someone update them please? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 00:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

As for Bulgaria, the Euro article mentions 1st January 2010, while the Bulgarian euro coins article specifies that it may be up to 6 months earlier. The Euro coin article thus contains a little more information that the Euro article only refers to in note 14, so I see no contradiction. Preslav 07:40, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, the later dates are the more likely ones; we should simply find the latest dates given by the government (on Google News or on eubusiness.com) and source the dates from there. —Nightstallion (?) 20:31, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

As for Hungary I can safely say that any guess is as good as ours. New dates are announced rather frequently, and the date of the introduction of the euro is a political battleground here. I recommend that the dates be changed to "To be announced"/"Not before 2010", or both simultaneously, otherwise we'd have to update this section almost daily. As some may know, the President of the National Bank will assume his office soon, this may bring about a viable target date for the euro. Bear with us, please. George Adam Horváth 22:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Now that Czech Republic is updated to 2012 on euro. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 18:47, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Nobody can fix this? --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 08:53, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I do not think anybody can fix this problem. There are official target dates that some governments are announcing but they are usually updated every year or so. Poland does not even have any official target date yet. Those dates are difficult to estimate as they depend on many factors (both economical and political). Some governments want to adopt euro earlier than they can others would like to wait longer even they meet economic criteria. Sometimes when the government changes the enthusiasm towards euro also changes. In other situations official target date might be already unachievable but it is still official and then different dates are circulating based on estimations of economists and politicians (both from the state interested and from European institutions). So there is a lot of speculation and contradicting views on those dates and the official ones are as possible to become reality as all those unofficial. In case of dates 4+ years ahead we can almost say “sometime in the future” :-) Example: In early 2006 official dates for Lithuania and Estonia where both 2007-01-01. They are both using their old currencies at the moment. No one was updating the entry date for Estonia for many months in 2006 but everybody knew that Estonia has to high inflation to meet the target so different sources were saying 2007, 2008, 2009 or 2010. CrZTgR 21:30, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Also see Convergence criteria where years are mentioned. (Stefan2 18:09, 20 April 2007 (UTC))

Czech Rep. isn't a contradiction, the cs euro article states that 2010 was originally planned but is not unlikely, the others state that it will probably be 2012. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 09:36, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Counterfeiting

I removed the section on counterfeiting for a couple of reasons. (1) It had no place in the macroeconomic stability section. (2) It's addition was of questionable value--it wasn't addressing any particular issue or concern voiced by a particular party or in other parts of the article. It wasn't factual problems, I just know it didn't belong where it was, and didn't see any particular fit anywhere else. Jelklan 21:06, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

I think this article doesn't belong! --justinian 17:15, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

All nations which have recently joined the EU are pledged to adopt the euro in due course,

"Recently" needs to be changed to "since <date>". (All nations that have joined the EU since XXXX have pledged to adopt the euro"). But which date? For expample, what did Sweden agree to do, and when did it agree it? --Red King 12:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Taken care of.--Wehwalt 16:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Danish want to join

Should this be mentioned? [11] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.26.188.19 (talk • contribs) 17:10, 19 April 2007

Maybe this should be mentioned in more detail. There are lots of opinion polls in Denmark about the euros, and not counting uncertain voters, it is usually on average 50-50 +/- 5% points for either side. Since 2005 (or so), the pro-euro side has been larger, although with a narrow marigin. The Danish government (consisting of Left and Conservative People's Party) is in favour of introducing the euro; however, the government doesn't have 50% of the seats in the parliament, and is co-operating with Danish People's Party, which is against. Since they are co-operating with Danish People's Party, maybe it would be difficult to hold another referendum. The popular opinion has changed several times, so besides there being lots of uncertain voters, the outcome of a possible future referendum would be uncertain. Maybe these two reasons prevent the Danish government from holding a new referendum.

Denmark has an opt-out from participating in the euro, and as far as I know, the opt-out text for this (and also for the other three opt-outs in the Maastricht Treaty) states that the opt-out only can be abolished if the Danish people votes in favour of doing so in a popular referendum.

Some of the details mentioned here might have to be checked further in case I remember something wrong. (212.247.11.153 19:38, 19 April 2007 (UTC))

There's additional information on Swedish Wikipedia and Danish Wikipedia. (Stefan2 21:48, 19 April 2007 (UTC))

See also Børsen (opinion polls on each of the four opt-outs in PDF files mentioned under the "EU" section). (Stefan2 21:52, 19 April 2007 (UTC))

In any case, a Danish referendum on something as controversial as the euro is currently unlikely given the commotion caused by the appearence of the New Alliance, and furthermore any referendum would annoy the Danish People's Party. If Anders Fogh had/has any plans in that regard, he has kept his lips firmly shut. Valentinian ^{T / C} 12:31, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Is the NA in favour or against, BTW? I haven't really been able to figure out where they stand on Europe... —Nightstallion (?) 16:01, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so. The entire report seems quite dubious. It has some very vague phrases written in a matter that's clearly meant to try to make them seem more extreme than they are (like "majority" could be anything from a .001% majority, to 90% majority). Also, a lot of info is agreed with by Commission surveys (which are carried out independently for the Commission) but not in the way the phrasing would initally suggest: such as only 6 existing having a majority wanting to keep the euro. [12] On page 30 of this survey (last September) only 3 states had an "overall disadvantageous" opinion of the euro that was higher than their "overall advantageous". The Open Europe one, would suggest that those other 7, had a majority negative opinion (it doesn't say that explicitly but I think it's phrasing's intention seems very clear). For example, take Portugal's Commission results:

• • 43% think euro was advantageous
  • 34% think euro was disadvantageous
  • 15% think euro was neither
  • 9% don't know

From that you could accurately say that "There is not a majority of support for the euro in Portugal". This sentence is accurate, but misleading, because most people would assume that this means the largest group of people are ones with negative opinions, wheras they aren't. There is no majority by any one opinion but the plurality is those who found it to be advantageous.

Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but I really think the way a lot of its phrased suggests a bias. - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 21:32, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

10€, not €10

The correct use of the Euro Symbol is behind the amount. For example: 10€ is correct, €10 is wrong. Please pay attention to this! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Drawnitem (talk • contribs)

In English, in fact €10 is the correct form, and I believe the most commonly used form in Ireland, the only English-speaking country that uses the Euro. It is also the only correct form in the UK, at least - 10€ just looks odd. I refer you to the EU official site and Apple's store in Ireland.

You seem to have also capitalised the word "Euro" every time it comes up. I'm doing a wholesale revert because:

• It'll be very time-consuming to sort it out otherwise
• The capitalisation could play havoc with web addresses and so on.
• According to previous comments here it doesn't really matter either way. Note that the official site I gave you before has no capitals. Pfainuk 21:59, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

While I'm supporting you with the fact that in Britain €10 is used instead of 10€ I think 10€ does not look odd. E.g. in Germany, France or Austria the latter way is common. One could say for Britons 10€ look odd and €10 looks odd for Germans. I'm just critizising the generality of "it looks odd"

It is also placed before the amount in the Netherlands. Everywhere else, it appears they tack it on the end. Anyway, this is the English Wikipedia. It should be €10. SergioGeorgini 20:40, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

How to insert this chart?

thumb|Der Kursverlauf des Euro gegenüber dem US-Dollar von 1999 bis Ende 2006 seems not to work. You can find it here: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:EurUsd.png --134.155.99.41 10:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

What languages to include in the infobox?

Debate moved to Template talk:Infobox Currency.

Map error

There is a glaring error on the 'current eurozone' article under the 'Euro (coin)' page.

I am a resident of Northern Ireland (Part of the UK!!!), and the map shows Northern Ireland as being a permanent eurozone member - however we are not, we are simply an EU member like England, Scotland and Wales.

Please if someone could ammend this, I would be grateful.

81.129.48.8 20:42, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

File:Eurozonevector.svg

new map

You mean the image on the right? I don't know why the old map was replaced. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 02:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

old map

Note that the Northern Ireland thing isn't the only problem. Kosovo is misplaced on the map. (Stefan2 09:24, 17 May 2007 (UTC))

PNG is a proprietary format, and so all .PNG images on Wikipedia are being gradually replaced with .SVG. However, rather than converting images, people are recreating them, and they may not be as knowledgeable as those who first made them. kwami 17:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

This is not true. For photos and similar images SVG is not an option. The difference is between a bitmap appoach (PNG) where the images is stored as a set of dots each of which has its own colour; allowing for strange shapes, subtle colours etc; but that will not scale well; and a vector approach (SVG) where a circle is stored as a circle with a line with, a fill, and a radius (which will indeed scale very well). Recreating e.g. Rembrandts Nightwatch in SVG is impossible, but for maps and graphics SVG is indeed much preferred. Arnoutf 07:55, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I corrected it._└ ^{S. SOLBERG J.} / _talk ^┐ 22:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually the reason PNGs are to be replaced by SVG (where feasible), is that SVGs scale to infity. PNGs don't scale any bigger than their base size. And by the way, PNG is not propriatary - if PNG was, so would SVG, cause they're both controlled by W3C. - ^Рэд_хот^{(t • c • e)} 21:10, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Greenland in the ERM?

Greenland is not in the EU, but it uses the krone, which is part of the ERM. So, should Greenland be included in the map, with the same color as Denmark? The Faroes have their own currency, but it's pegged to the krone, so we might ask the same question there. Then there's all the French territories & ex-colonies with pegged currencies, so maybe it would be better to have a separate map for the larger world? It just doesn't seem right that we should leave out parts of the EU from the map when we include Balkan countries which aren't in the EU just because they happen to be covered by the map we have. kwami 21:20, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The Danish crown is included in the ERM II, so I would assume that any territory using the currency should be listed as being included in the ERM II, including Greenland. The ERM II includes currencies, not countries or territories.

The Faroe Islands is a separate matter. While the people there use separate notes (which may or may not be considered a separate currency), they use the normal Danish coins, so maybe the Faroe Islands should be listed as using both Danish crowns (coins) and Faroese crowns (notes).

The francs you mentioned is a separate thing. They are pegged to the euro, but not as ERM II. (Stefan2 10:39, 18 May 2007 (UTC))

Apparently, the Faroese crowns is not a separate currency, technically, they're basically Danish crowns with a different design. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (< \) (2 /) /)/ * 12:28, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Depends on the definition of a currency. They have the same ISO code, and there is no difference whatsoever in non-cash transactions, but there is no place where both variants of notes are legal tender. The same will be true for the Greenlandic notes that will be issued starting in 2008. (Stefan2 21:05, 20 May 2007 (UTC))

Related AFD

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/'no' campaign (euro) --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 11:13, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Euro coin images

After more copyright paranoia / pseudovandalism, most of the images of euro-based coins have been deleted (see IfD "debate"). If anyone has free (or fair use) images of the images deleted (see IfD for red links), we could really do with them being uploaded. — OwenBlacker 11:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Yielded currencies of the Eurozone

it lacks Monaco. Cliché Online 19:20, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Article problem!!!

In the "Euro" article it says that the euro is the legal currency of the uninhabited "Clipperton Island" and the "French southern and antarctic lands" (which are made also by the "Scattered islands in the Indian ocean"), but if you go to the "Special member state territories and the European Union" article there is a table where it says that both "Clipperton Island" and the "Scattered islands in the Indian ocean" (which are now part of the "French southern and antarctic lands") don't have the euro as their legal currency!!! So please can somebody see what is wrong and correct one of the two articles? Thank you. 8 July 2007

To my knowledge, EUR is the currency of France and all its dependencies except for the ones using XPF. So it would seem that the legal currency of the uninhabited areas would be EUR, although there's no one there to actually use any currency. (Stefan2 22:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC))

This is correct. If it is legally part of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, it is part of Euroland. France issues stamps for the FSAT in euro. Anyone there would presumably use the same.--Wehwalt 22:35, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

All of above are valid arguments. But I don't think we need to bother with uninhabited regions when it comes to currency. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Would it be part of Euroland if the EU does not recognize France's claim to the territory? I believe that under international law, French Antarctica is not a dependency of France, but rather international territory. Not that we need to address this, just another monkey wrench to throw in the discussion. kwami 01:00, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Error

"In addition, 25 states and territories have currencies that are directly pegged to the euro including 14 countries in mainland Africa, 4 EU members that will ultimately join the euro, 3 French Pacific territories, 2 African island countries and 2 Balkan countries."

Shouldn't this be 24 states? Bulgaria seems to be included both as an "EU country that will ultimately join the euro" and as a "Balkan country". (Stefan2 22:25, 8 July 2007 (UTC))

I believe it was written before Bulgarian joined the EU (2007). The 4 EU members that will ultimately joins the euro refer to the 3 Baltic + Malta. So I moved Bulgaria from one category to another. The sum is still 25. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:50, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Proposed new article

I propose that we create a new article, Enlargement of the eurozone. There are lots of reasons I think it would be appropriate (e.g. there's one for ... of the European Union) but the main one, is that it would seem most useful to have all that information in one place, instead of scattered in many different articles (this one, in Eurozone, and in the xxx coins pages). What do others think? - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 11:56, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

You mean everything about euro in one article? --Jonson22 15:47, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I mean everything about the expanding of the eurozone, in one article. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 07:26, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a good idea. The main article of euro is gradually getting bloated with the enlargement information. The proposed new article must take from this article and eurozone. My only concern is to eliminate unnecessary duplication across articles. Splitting articles can be an double edge sword when it comes to dupe info. Introduction of the euro should be taken into consideration too. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I've started a stub for it now. Feel free to add/remove. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 10:48, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Unofficial countries

How does Andorra, Montenegro, and Kosovo adopt euro unilaterally? Since they are legally not allowed to mint Euro, do they buy enough of it for local circulation or something? --Voidvector 09:58, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they did. It is a free decision of every country to choose which money should be the legal currency. I myself travelled through Kosova and my Serbian money (dinars) were not accepted but I had to change them by a marketeer into euros. Nevertheless there are also still German marks circulating and they are dealed at a ratio of 1 to 2 because this was the currency there before the euro kicked in. The same counts for Montenegro. By the way, better change Serbian dinars outside Kosova or Montenegro if you want to travel into this countries. --134.155.99.41 14:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, they can choose to make any currency the main currency used in their territories but they gain no influence over how that currency is managed or how interest rates are set. They have to go and buy currency from amenable banks in a state in which that currency is the official currency (so Montenegro, for instance, goes shopping to Germany to buy and sell excess euros). And of course private individuals and money changers and banks can also buy or sell euros in a Eurozone country or in agreement with anyone who has access to Euros (usually Eurozone banks).

And Serbian dinars remain acceptable in Kosovo (including for official payments), but you wouldn't want to try and use them outside of the Serbian north or the enclaves. Even speaking Serbian on the streets of Pristina is a risk not worth taking. DSuser 14:32, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this just on hard currency level? because money is not just physical currency, it could be on accounts (money supply). What I see in here is that those countries are piggybacking on Eurozone stability (while it does boost the currency's circulation). When the banks in those countries make loans, they are in fact expanding the euro money supply. If lots of loans in those country go bust or investments sour, it would damage the euro. --Voidvector 01:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely true. As I've heard it from EU officials in the Balkans, the thinking is that this is a small price to pay for the foreign policy benefits, at least in the case of Kosovo where EU aid is such a large part of the economy in any case; Montenegro is less clear but there was ultimately little that the EU could do to stop them without souring the political relationship. Andorra is just very small. DSuser 11:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, anyone is of course free to use any currency. If you wish, you could open up a shop in France where you only accept US dollars as payment, and the American government could do nothing to stop you. The EU might not like the way the euro is used, but can do nothing to prevent it. All three areas are however very small, so they don't affect the eurozone in any high degree. (Stefan2 14:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC))

Actually, you couldn't open a shop in France and only accept US$. That is true for most countries, all shops have to accept local official tender, which is the euro in France. But you are right about the US Government being unable to do anything about it if you decide to also accept US$. A lot of countries do a lot of transaction in US$ for convenience, such as countries with a lot of tourism or high inflation, but if you want to pay in the official tender, sellers are not allowed to refuse. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AtikuX (talk • contribs) 07:39, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

When Kosovo and Montenegro started to use the D-mark in the 1990-ies, first informally then officially, the people just exchanged their dinars to D-marks and later into Euro. This could be done since the rest of Serbia kept the dinar. If a whole country changes currency to Euro without being able to print banknotes, the governmant has to borrow money to exchange the old currency. Someone has to have the old banknotes in the end when they are rendered worthless, and this one pays for the change. For Kosovo and Montenegro, Serbia were the one paying for it, and they had hyper inflation at the time. -- BIL 09:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Serbia paid also when Slovenia left the dinar, when Croatia did the same and when Bosnia and Herzegovina did it, too, not to forget the Republic_of_Macedonia. So this does not count for Kosova and Montenegro only but every one of them left Yugoslavia and the Dinar throughout the 1990th after having paid for decades for hegemonic Serbs until they all got fed up. And the hyperinflation you are talking about is for sure more based on the bloody war Serbia brought to Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosova and at last the NATO bombings, which stopped all this bloodshed. --134.155.99.41 13:54, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree that any country can use whatever country as their legal tender, such as Panama, El Salvador, and Ecuador with the United States dollar. But I don't think Yugoslavia's hyperinflation was because of adopting a harder currency. I think it was solely for financing the war. The hyperinflation ended around 1994, and the Kosovo officially adopt the German mark in 1999. That's a large gap. What I'm trying to say is that these are two different issues. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 10:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Serbia did not have to pay so much for Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, since these countries introduced there own currency. These governments could print money and replace people's dinars with them. The question was what these four governments did with their dinars, probably exchanged them for D-mark. Then Serbia had to pay. But because of the inflation there were not much value left. The ususal reason for hyperinflation is that the government (here the Serbian) prints too much money. Where did all bigger and bigger banknotes come from? So the biggest losers were of course people and companies with savings. Kosovo and Montenegro inofficially and in reality used the D-mark from the hyperinflation year, only later officially. -- BIL 14:34, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

"Chart analysis"

To put this record high into perspective, $1.38 equates to an increase of only $0.20 from the euro's initial trading price of $1.18, compared to the loss of about $0.35 when it hit its record low. A similar increase would result in an exchange rate of $1.53 for one euro. Additionally, considering the time since its introduction being 8 and a half years, an increase of $0.20 seems to be fairly moderate. Taking into account all these factors, there is no immediate psychological barrier for a further increasing euro. (cf. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Euro&diff=next&oldid=147676338 ) Is there really any essential information in these numbers? --NeoUrfahraner 06:39, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You could also ask if it is essential to remind that the dollar had an even lower value against euros predecessor (German mark) than it's record low now. I think yes, and the reason is quite simple, I would call it "expectation of the market participants". This expectation has a lot to do with the currencies past, the currencies developement. For the same reason share holders analyses the past of the stocks making charts. And by the way, please leave the reader the decision to choose what to find essential because if there are many information he may choose the one for him, if there are only few information you don't give him this choice at all. So if you are willing to mention the developement of the euros predecessor Ecu as you proposed on the discussion page at the German wikipedia you are welcome to do so. TIA. --134.155.99.41 12:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a common theory that Stock prices express the collective expectations of investors, i.e. the current "expectation of the market participants" is reflected in the current price and, as I said above, I see no essential information in these numbers. --NeoUrfahraner 14:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That's what I said. And these expectations are also influenced by the past developement, that's why these numbers (and charts) are essential. --134.155.99.41 15:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yesterday the euro fell below USD 1.35. How does your chart analysis explain this? What does your analysis say at what time the further increasing euro will come? --NeoUrfahraner 06:27, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It was because the European central bank intervened much more massively due to the U.S. subprime concerns then any other bank. Nevertheless I bet the euro will rather break through 1.40 than falling under 1.30. --134.155.99.41 13:15, 21 August 2007 (UTC) PS: I won. But I will be fair giving you a second chance: I bet the euro will rather break through 1.50 than falling under 1.30.

I see no reason to bet against this. As you know the Euro increased because the FED decreased the interest rate. If the ECB continues to increase the interest rate, the Euro will break through 1.50. Your hypothesis cannot be falsified. If would be more scientific if you provide lower and upper psychological barriers that hold independent from economic fators like interest rates and balance of trade. --NeoUrfahraner 08:18, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

So you are questioning chart analysis at all and rely on fundamental analysis only? Fine, but please do not put yourself above others by doing so. --134.155.99.42 11:07, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, since I assume that your chart analysis is not original research feel free to add a reliable source about the (non)existing psychological barriers. --NeoUrfahraner 11:45, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Please read and understand that the dollar was deeper and it was higher compared to euros predecessors like German mark or ECU. But I think you are just trolling and not interested in a constructive discussion as your remark about the 100 years (see below) proves it. I am talking about months and years but definitely not about centuries nor days and weeks. --134.155.99.41 12:14, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

When was the dollar deeper compared to ECU? --NeoUrfahraner 12:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I do not have the newspaper anymore, I read it on my flight from Ljubljana to Frankfurt, it was written in the FAZ from 18. September this year. --134.155.99.41 13:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should check your source again. According to http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory the ECU high / dollar low on 19 April 1995 was 1.35250 dollar per ECU. On this day there was also the lowest value of the dollar against DEM. I do not have any ECU data from the 80s, but in Ronald Reagan's time the dollar was relatively high. --NeoUrfahraner 14:12, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I called today FAZ, they will send me the newspaper. --134.155.99.41 13:11, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, today the FAZ was in my mail box. It is written on page 21, edition nr. 218, Sept. 19th: "So betrachtet liegt das absolute Rekordhoch des Euro/Ecu auf Schlusskursbasis bei 1,4564 Dollar und wurde am 8. September 1992 erreicht. Allerdings entsprach der Währungskorb des Ecu nicht dem heutigen Euro. Bereinigt man dies, wurde das historische Euro-Hoch mit 1,5322 Dollar am 2. September 1992 erreicht." That means the dollar is still far away of his lowest value. --134.155.99.41 15:15, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

OK. http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory gives high rate 1.4572 for 8 Sep 1992. --NeoUrfahraner 08:05, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

You know, what "Währungskorb" means? Compared to the euro the dollar had a value of $1,5322, so please stop trolling, because I know you can read and understand if you want to.

What ist the problem? You said the "Schlusskurs" (closing rate) is 1.4564, http://www.oanda.com/convert/fxhistory says the high rate is 1.4572, both are using the "Währungskorb" (currency weights) valid in Sept 92 and not the "Währungskorb" of the Euro. I see no contradiction in these data. --NeoUrfahraner 09:35, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably. But again not because of "no immediate psychological barriers" but because of the politics of the European central bank. --NeoUrfahraner 11:04, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

You still seem to underestimate the importance and influence of psychology in market expectations. What would you do if chart analysis contradicts fundamental analysis? The charts are the reality, they show you what happend, even if it was in contradiction to the fundamentals. Und die Realität hat immer Recht. --134.155.99.41 00:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed in the last weeks we observed these contradictions between your chart analysis saying that the euro will increase and the fundamental data resulting in a decrease of the euro. I know what to do with these contradicitons, namely adding no speculations at all about the future exchange rate. What will you do with these contradicions? --NeoUrfahraner 04:42, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

You are talking about weeks? Earnestly? This is not the time span I am talking about. --134.155.99.41 01:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I see. Chart analysis is like horoscopes. If the promised results do not occur, the astrologers say that their vague words ("immediate psychological barrier for a further increasing euro") have to be interpreted differently. So you are saying that the euro will increase, if not in this week, then maybe in 100 years. And if it will not increase, you will say that it is not because of a psychological barrier, but because of the politics of the Fed or of European central bank. By the way, what is the psychological barrier for a decreasing euro? What will happen if the economic conditions change and the Fed decides to increase the interest rate and the ECB decreases the interest rate? How will the psychological barrier for a decreasing euro stop the investors from taking advantage of the differences in the interest rates? --NeoUrfahraner 06:52, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

You've got it, if the euro will not increase it is not because of any psychological barrier because there are no such barriers for an increasing euro. You are asking about the psychological barrier for a decreasing euro? The momentum of the euros rising as a reserve currency itself is the psychological barrier for a decreasing euro. --134.155.99.41 02:39, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

And you overestimate the effect of FEDs rate cut as it is more the dollars decreasing role as a reserve currency that brings dollars value down. In the interview published in Stern magazine, Greenspan said it was “absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the dollar as reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency.” If the former chairman’s words prove true, the dollar’s present downward slide will continue. Greenspan noted that at the end of 2006, two thirds of all currency reserves were held in dollars, as opposed to 25 percent for the euro. If central banks continue to increase euro proportions at the expense of the dollar, demand for the dollar will fall and excess dollar supplies could start flooding the market. In fact, this trend is already under way, as evidenced by the recent breakdown in the dollar’s value. http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?q=4380.0.99.0 I think we should mention this in the article. --134.155.99.42 22:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Please update it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Euro_exchange_rate_to_USD%2C_JPY%2C_and_GBP.png is over half a year old. Could anyone show compassion? Or show others how to update it? I would do it if I would know how... --Mustafa Mustamann 17:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC) PS: to be more precisely it is over 8 months old!

Done. :) If you run Linux, and have Gnuplot available, you can run the script on the description page and it will automatically download the data and generate a new plot. You can also use the Windows version of Gnuplot, but in that case, you'll have to download and unzip it by hand, and use an editor with search/replace or similar to strip the comment lines at the top of the datafile and remove all the commas. Han-Kwang 22:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

higher export

higher export costs are compensated by lower import costs, so the negative impact is balanced out "meaning there is almost no negative impact for the larger parts of industry" Markthemac 03:02, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

export and import do include a surcharge for currency exchange. So while exports become more expensive when exchange costs have to be included it does not mean that imports become cheaper as on import price the exchange costs also have to be added.

Still GA standard?

This article seams to have fallen a tad since it was GA. Most notable thing is the huge lack of citation for most of the article. If there are some active expert editors here, I think it would be good to give it an overhaul. The main problem I can see, aside from the citation, is that the structure is very unclear - it could do with being streamlined and cleaned up in a simpler form. It might also be wise to better organise the group of articles, define each articles scope more clearly. Sorry to just poke holes, I'm not very good with economics, but if there is anything else - my door is open. - J Logan ^t: 18:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Contradiction 2

Regarding the adoption date of Poland,

• This article: 2012
• Eurozone: 2012
• Polish euro coins: On 2006-01-17, Polish Finance Minister Zyta Gilowska said ... that 2011 was an achievable deadline.
• Polish złoty: The Polish government stated (in June 2004) that it would like to join the euro in 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chochopk (talk • contribs) 06:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

And Latvia

• This article: 2011 or later
• Eurozone, in text: Latvia expects to adopt the euro between 2010 and 2012
• Eurozone, in the huge table: Not before 2012
• Latvian lats: 2011
• Latvian euro coins: planned to adopt the euro on 2008-01-01, but this no longer appears to be possible.

--ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 05:33, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

The correct dates are "likely 2012" for Poland and "not before 2012" for Latvia. —Nightstallion 14:15, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

What do ATMs dispense?

I added a new attribute to the currency infobox that indicates what denominations ATMs dispense. Examples are available at United States dollar and pound sterling. What about euro? I guess that it varies from place to place (a lot). --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 06:17, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

It really varies. In my experience, I've seen all denominations up to a hundred euro dispensed. --Wehwalt 01:26, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the entry from the infobox myself because it is too WP:OR as discussed at Talk:Japanese yen. Sorry about taking your time. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 03:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Collapsible list

Ssolbergj, I'm sure you're in good faith. But I have to point out that your edit breaks if you turn off java script. The "[show]/[hide]" button won't display. This is true with Firefox, IE, and Safari. --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 08:22, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Euro in the UK

from Euro#Current Eurozone (2007), last point

"Euro can be exchanged over the counter in all high-street banks and post offices, without the usual formalities of a 'foreign currency' deal."

What this is supposed to mean,euro it's a foreign currency ... but not that foreign?--88.82.47.31 04:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

What formalities? I mean, you bring in foreign money, you exchange it. I think the sentence makes no sense. Euros are acceptable in many shops, but that is up to the owners. See the BBC coverage from around the time euro came in.--Wehwalt 04:35, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but as far as I can see it's not true - if you took euro to my local post office you'd certainly have to treat it as foreign currency and pay a commission to exchange it for sterling. This was introduced by 86.3.50.93 on 23rd August. I'm taking it out, if someone wants to put it back then they'll have to put cites in. -- Arwel (talk) 06:05, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

About the point "usual formalities".I understand that,yes you have to buy and sell at market value,but are they some other kind of formalities ,for other foreign exchange?Maybe for security/police resons,like maney landrey.Maybe the difference is not when you go and change 20€,but when you whant to change 20 million €.May be when you whant to change 20 million €, you are not treated the same way as if you whant to change 20 million $.I supose that the fraze is refering to something of that sort.I just whanted some futher explaination on, whatever the editor had in mind.--88.82.47.31 06:49, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

There are a very small number of shops (more in Northern Ireland) which will accept EUR instead of GBP, but this hasn't really taken off. AndrewRT(Talk) 12:28, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the UK, but in Sweden the euro is treated as any other foreign currency. Some shops accept it, but on the other hand, some shops also accept GBP, USD and/or other currencies too. The only difference is that banks were forced to stop charging fees for euro transactions (within the EEA), while they still charge fees for other foreign currencies such as GBP. (Stefan2 18:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC))

Cypriot pound and Maltese lira

Cypriot pound and Maltese lira.The rates are still floating?Are they already locked?In theory they will be locked 1/1/2008 but already they are considered as good as euros?How cares what the rate will be in 31/12/2007,in 1/1/2008 they will be that rate over night?Can somebody make this clear what's going on,in this +-5 months period that every body knows what the rate will be in the end of the year,but apparently they still(officially) floating freely.--88.82.47.31 00:23, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

According to Maltese lira, it's pegged to the euro since 2005. ECB chart shows that €1 = 0.5842 Cypriot pound since 2007-07-12. But that is not the central rate. It is 0.585274. The Central Bank of Cyprus says the same thing. So we can say that CYP still "floats". --ChoChoPK (球球PK) (talk | contrib) 09:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Citation found but in German

Maybe someone with better english can translate: Der Euro hat nach seiner Einführung sehr stark an Wert verloren. Die Euroschwäche hing jedoch auch viel mit der Tatsache zusammen, dass... innerhalb der EWU noch die Denominationen (D-Mark, Francs) des Euro galten. So I will remove the "citation needed" mark about the reason of euros initial fall. http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~tmuehle/europa/euro/eurochart.htm#usdix --134.155.99.41 13:32, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

From the same page: nachdem die EU ihre lahmende Wirtschaftspolitik nicht in Gang zu bringen vermochte, nahm ein Abwärtstrend des Euro seinen Lauf. Free translation: "After the EU was not able to set the lame economy in motion a down trend of the euro started". This does not really support the sentence "the fundamental facts did not justify the euro's fall." In addition I doubt that a private user page is a reliable source. --NeoUrfahraner 14:21, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

There is a Policy statement somewhere that says specifically that Blogs and similar personal pages are not citable. It has to come from a notable source. The chairman of the Bundesbank would do. --Red King 19:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

GNUPLOT

I just installed linux and gnuplot.Gnuplot is a command line based program, so I have to start it through the terminal but I cannot copy and paste into the terminal. So can someone tell me how to do without having to type this all as it is described here: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Euro_exchange_rate_to_USD%2C_JPY%2C_and_GBP.png&action=edit&section=3 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.155.99.41 (talk) 04:18, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

OK, I gave my best but still it looks weird: http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/9081/euroexchangeratetousdjpef9.png What went wrong? --134.155.99.42 05:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Bulgarian in infobox

Bulgarian does not belong in the infobox. Bulgaria is not a user of the euro and the Bulgarian word for “euro” does not appear on the physical currency

From Template:Infobox Currency:

All official languages of the official users (i.e. members of the "using_countries) at the national level, plus all that appear on the physical currencies. – Zntrip 01:03, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Bulgaria should, of course, be included in the infobox as Bulgarian is indeed an official EU language and the name "Евро" is to be included in official documents and Euro banknotes even before Bulgaria is set to enter EMU III. Slovenia does not (yet) have a derogation to use the national spelling "evro", nor does Lativa have a derogation to use the national spelling "eiro". --Camptown 23:33, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Bulgaria does not use the euro, and it doesn’t matter what the EU says, there are parameters already in place for Template:Infobox Currency that I don’t think you have read. Either way, the Slovenian language was its own spelling of euro and the euro is used in Slovenia. Therefore, the word “evro” is included here. The Latvian spelling is not included because Latvia does not use the euro. – Zntrip 04:27, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

1 and 2 cents in Netherlands

Why is finland alone now mentioned as the place where 1 and 2 cents are often used? To my knowledge, the Netherlands has been on this list before (if several discussions on this page are to be believed) and should never have been removed without proper discussion... but I see no discussion here, can anyone point me to it or put the Netherlands back in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.84.25.121 (talk) 19:30, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

A new reserve currency

Shouldn’t we remove the Swiss franc from this template below as it holds only 0.1 to 0.2 percent and merge it into the row “Others”? --134.155.99.42 05:44, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves (1965–2023, fourth quarters)

	2023	2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016	2015	2014	2013	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1995	1990	1985	1980	1975	1970	1965
US dollar	58.41%	58.52%	58.80%	58.92%	60.75%	61.76%	62.73%	65.36%	65.73%	65.14%	61.24%	61.47%	62.59%	62.14%	62.05%	63.77%	63.87%	65.04%	66.51%	65.51%	65.45%	66.50%	71.51%	71.13%	58.96%	47.14%	56.66%	57.88%	84.61%	84.85%	72.93%
Euro (until 1999—ECU)	19.98%	20.40%	20.59%	21.29%	20.59%	20.67%	20.17%	19.14%	19.14%	21.20%	24.20%	24.05%	24.40%	25.71%	27.66%	26.21%	26.14%	24.99%	23.89%	24.68%	25.03%	23.65%	19.18%	18.29%	8.53%	11.64%	14.00%	17.46%
Japanese yen	5.70%	5.51%	5.52%	6.03%	5.87%	5.19%	4.90%	3.95%	3.75%	3.54%	3.82%	4.09%	3.61%	3.66%	2.90%	3.47%	3.18%	3.46%	3.96%	4.28%	4.42%	4.94%	5.04%	6.06%	6.77%	9.40%	8.69%	3.93%	0.61%
Pound sterling	4.84%	4.92%	4.81%	4.73%	4.64%	4.43%	4.54%	4.35%	4.71%	3.70%	3.98%	4.04%	3.83%	3.94%	4.25%	4.22%	4.82%	4.52%	3.75%	3.49%	2.86%	2.92%	2.70%	2.75%	2.11%	2.39%	2.03%	2.40%	3.42%	11.36%	25.76%
Canadian dollar	2.58%	2.38%	2.38%	2.08%	1.86%	1.84%	2.03%	1.94%	1.77%	1.75%	1.83%	1.42%
Chinese renminbi	2.29%	2.61%	2.80%	2.29%	1.94%	1.89%	1.23%	1.08%
Australian dollar	2.11%	1.97%	1.84%	1.83%	1.70%	1.63%	1.80%	1.69%	1.77%	1.59%	1.82%	1.46%
Swiss franc	0.23%	0.23%	0.17%	0.17%	0.15%	0.14%	0.18%	0.16%	0.27%	0.24%	0.27%	0.21%	0.08%	0.13%	0.12%	0.14%	0.16%	0.17%	0.15%	0.17%	0.23%	0.41%	0.25%	0.27%	0.33%	0.84%	1.40%	2.25%	1.34%	0.61%
Deutsche Mark																									15.75%	19.83%	13.74%	12.92%	6.62%	1.94%	0.17%
French franc																									2.35%	2.71%	0.58%	0.97%	1.16%	0.73%	1.11%
Dutch guilder																									0.32%	1.15%	0.78%	0.89%	0.66%	0.08%
Other currencies	3.87%	3.48%	3.09%	2.65%	2.51%	2.45%	2.43%	2.33%	2.86%	2.83%	2.84%	3.26%	5.49%	4.43%	3.04%	2.20%	1.83%	1.81%	1.74%	1.87%	2.01%	1.58%	1.31%	1.49%	4.87%	4.89%	2.13%	1.29%	1.58%	0.43%	0.03%
	Source: World Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves. International Monetary Fund.

I don't think so. - S. Solberg J. 16:30, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

You think, 0.1 to 0.2 percent is worth to own an own row in this template? I guess there are single currencies with a higher percentage than 0.2 in the row "Others" than the Swiss franc, making it even more reasonable to merge the Swiss franc into this row. --134.155.99.42 17:28, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it. Can you prove that? If it were like that, it would obviously be included as its own row... —Nightstallion 22:55, 10 November 2007 (UTC)