Interesting Facts about the Euro

In the arena of international trade and commerce the importance of the European countries never declined since the early days of the capitalist economy i.e. roughly from the 16th century. Certainly they faced major setbacks with the emergence of the United States of America in the twentieth century. Still the importance of the European economies is immense in the capitalist world order. The Euro is the common currency of several of these countries. Here we have prepared a list of 12 must-be-known facts about the Euro.

  1. Talks about a common currency for all the European countries were in the air since the 1970s. It was the result of the long process of drawing a common European economic space which started after the conclusion of the World War II with active American assistance. One of the major steps was taken in the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht which laid down certain rules for the member countries to follow in order to be included in the club of the countries using the Euro.
  2. Before the physical circulation of the Euro, it was introduced as a medium of electronic payments in 1st January, 1999. The first notes of Euro came into circulation in 1st January, 2002.
  3. It was introduced in 12 countries at the first instance. The first countries to adopt Euro were Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Finland, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Ireland, France, and The Netherlands.
  4. Later several other countries joined the club of Euro users. This included Cyprus, Estonia, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
  5. The Euro is denoted by the symbol €. €1 is further divided into 100 cent. The symbol came from the Greek alphabet ‘epsilon’ with two parallel horizontal lines crossing the middle of the alphabet.
  6. Coins of 1 cent, 2 cent, 5 cent, 10 cent, 20 cent, 50 cent, €1, and €2 are available. The reverse of the Euro coins is same throughout the Eurozone. They carried the denomination of the coin and a map of Europe on the reverse. But the obverse is different since the particular issuing country inscribed different symbols according to their choice. However, they can be used in any of the countries recognizing Euro.
  7. The Euro coins are endowed with High-security-machine-readable features in order to avoid the circulation of fake coins. Some of the low valued coins are made of Nordic Gold- an alloy specifically made to construct coins.
  8. The currency notes also come in different denominations starting from €5. The highest value of the currency note in circulation is €500. The denominations are written on the notes in three different scripts- Greek, Roman, and Cyrillic.
  9. The notes of different denominations are printed in different colors. €5 comes in grey, €10 is printed in red, €20 in blue, €50 in orange, €100 in green, €200 in yellow, and €500 comes in purple.
  10. The currency notes are of uniform design across the Eurozone unlike the Euro coins.  The notes of different denominations carry the picture of a particular European building printed on them.
  11. The central authority to supervise the monetary policy according to which the Euro is issued is the European Central Bank (ECB) with its headquarters situated in Frankfurt, Germany. The Eurosystem, a conglomerate of the different central banks of the Euro using countries, supervise the minting, printing, and distribution of the coins and currencies.
  12. The Euro is a greatly valued currency in the global economic sphere. Only the US $ surpasses the € in importance in international trade and currency reserve of different countries.

Interesting facts & discoveries about coins

Finally found: the ancient Heraklion
«Lights of history», that’s how Johann Jakob Scheuchzer, a universal savant from Zurich in the 18th century, called coins. What fingerprints are for criminal investigations, that’s what coins are for historians: a medium for identification, a way to light up unknown and clandestine things.
The information on coins is currently pivotal in a spectacular case. According to recent reports, French aquanaut Frank Goddio has found a sensational trove: the ancient Heraklion. He found this immersed town not off shore from Crete, but more in the south of the Mediterranean, near the Egypt town of Alexandria. Besides a well-preserved and lettered stele, which provides information about its habitat, there have been three broken statues. Two of them can now be identified due to comparisons with coins from the 1st millennium BC.

The Euro – just a holiday love affair?
«Nordic Gold», that’s the name of the alloy the Euro-coins are made of. A cool name for an object heating presently so many minds.
Thus, will the new money ever be loved? Scarcely in this year, as Hans Eichel – at the time Federal Chancellor of the Exchequer of Germany – said. But next year, so he continued, this will change. Then the people will hold the new bills and coins in the hand – and then the people will realize that there is no more need for changing money for a holiday in Europe.
Well, the Chancellor of Exchequer will be right on both accounts. But he forgot that it will also be possible to compare all prices throughout Europe. And then, the holiday love affair may break off in the one or the other case. As it happens so often …

It is always springtime for counterfeiters
Should you plan to travel to one of the Euro-land countries in the months ahead, make sure you take a careful look at all bills and coins you get there. First, those currencies will be redeemed shortly, and secondly, they might be counterfeits!
In fact, counterfeiters don’t need any spring. Their «flowers» always blossom. Especially now, at the time of the biggest exchange of currencies in European history! That will mean that previous counterfeits will become worthless shortly – a good reason for counterfeiters to bring their counterfeits into circulation, especially among the tourists. Which tourist knows exactly how the real bill looks like? But it’s well worth looking carefully.
A currency union is a good way to make life miserable for counterfeiters. But not even the EURO is safe from them. The individual member states are free to design the front side of any euro coin themselves. That guarantees diversity, but also cracks in the security system.
Spectacular findings on the Atlantis-myth
Atlantis was a mythical and lost city even at the times of Plato in ancient Greece. That hasn’t changed up to our days. However, the riddle seems to be solved as a result of the new, spectacular exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany. The thesis worked out by Zurich-based archaeologist Eberhard Zangger: Atlantis is nothing else than Troja at the northern border of today’s Turkey. The probably oldest city tale appears to be lifted, finally.
But is it really? Read more about it in the article «The Battle for Troja» (so far in German only) and Zangger’s home-page – it is a fight among the titans of archaeology on a subject which is thousands of years old.

Garbage money
On the first of January 2002 Euro banknotes and coins will be put into circulation. Until that time 14.5 billion Euro banknotes must be manufactured at a staggering cost of 600 billion Deutsch marks. Ten billion bills need to be exchanged for the old national banknotes.
Starting in 2002 Europeans will finally get their hands on the Euro. One years grace is given to say goodbye to old Deutsch mark and carry it to the grave. But are they really simply going to be buried in the garden? According to plan the Landeszentralbank (State Central Bank) of Munich will not just destroy of 2.8 billion notes. After all, if the notes were laid one on top of the other it would create a tower 323 kilometers high weighing 700,000 tons.
Yet, even though coins can simply be melted and the metal separated, the cotton fibers in paper money make it much more complicated to recycle.