Euro makes debut at 88 cents on dollar
By Colleen Barry
Associated Press
FRANKFURT, Germany — More than 300 million Europeans began swapping their old currencies for the euro at midnight yesterday in the most ambitious currency changeover in history, one which the euro's architects hope will help realize dreams of a united Europe.
Bloomberg News Service
Citizens in a dozen countries were able to withdraw their first crisp new notes a decade after the euro was conceived with the Maastricht Treaty and three years after it began its virtual life underpinning the exchange rates of the mark, peseta, drachma, lira, franc and other national currencies that it replaces.
The Charlemagne Building in the heart of the European Quarter in Brussels, Belgium, was decorated to announce the launch of the Euro yesterday.
From Paris to Athens, Rome to Madrid, Europeans ushered in the euro with extravagant firework displays, live bands and huge parties in public squares. Outside of the European Central Bank headquarters in Frankfurt, officials lit a huge blue euro symbol.
Finland and Greece, on the currency zone's northern and southern most fringes, led the 12 nations welcoming the euro as a symbol of economic stability, with the New Year's arrival an hour before the rest of the continent and two hours before Ireland.
In Helsinki, Finnish Finance Minister Sauli Niinisto made the first official purchase: a cup of coffee paid for with a euro coin, worth 88 cents, at the Casino Ray.
And in Athens, Greek Premier Costas Simitis withdrew euro bank notes from an automatic teller machine, which he deposited in a charity box for UNICEF. Minutes later, hundreds of people flocked to ATMs.
"This is a milestone in Greek history. Now we are part of united Europe," Simitis said.
Though the euro is central to continental Europe's vision of tighter political union, it first became legal tender at midnight (3 p.m. EST) on tiny Reunion Island, a French department in the Indian Ocean.
More than 15 billion notes and 52 billion coins — worth 646 billion euros, or $568 billion — have been produced for the switchover. Six billion notes and 37.5 billion coins already are in banks and stores, the front lines in what has been the world's largest peacetime logistics operation.
Though it has lost 25 percent of its peak value against the dollar, the euro has generally been viewed as a success — eliminating fluctuations in national currencies, encouraging cross-border trade and pushing countries to budget carefully and liberalize their economies.
The 12-nation euro zone represents one-sixth of the world's economy, and is set to grow as the European Union expands eastward.
There were lines across Europe as people filled their wallets one last time with outgoing notes — from Europe's oldest, the drachma, dating back 2,650 years, to the continent's most powerful, the German mark.
European leaders adopted the euro over the skepticism of many citizens reluctant to relinquish symbols of national sovereignty. Only France and Denmark held referendums on adopting the euro — and the Danes voted to sit out the historic project along with Sweden and Britain, the three European Union holdouts.
Acknowledging the public's attachment to national currencies, architects of the euro expressed hope it will become a potent symbol of European unity.
"A vision is becoming reality," Helmut Kohl, the former German chancellor who with the late French leader Francois Mitterrand championed the single currency, wrote in the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung yesterday.
The nations adopting the euro are: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain.
