Every day 327 million Europeans use the Euro!

The Euro (€) is the official currency of 16 out of 27 of the member states of the European Union, also known as Eurozone, which is the second largest economy in the world.

You will find euro coins and banknotes when you travel in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain. There are also five other countries that, with either a formal or informal agreement are using the European currency, such as Kosovo and Montenegro.

History

The euro was officially adopted in 1995 and introduced to the financial world on 1 January 1999, but, physical coins and banknotes only replaced the countries members’ currency on 1 January 2002 after a process that, according the Maastricht Treaty, permitted to meet precisely monetary and budgetary requirements.

The euro is divided into 100 cents and all coins have a common side, designed by Luc Luycx, which shows the denomination and the value with a map as background, and a national side that shows an image chosen by the country.
When you’re shopping in France baguette in France you could use €2, €1, 50 cent, 20 cent, 10 cent, 5 cent, 2 cent and 1 cent!
But if you’re in the Netherlands or in Finland you can forget about the two smallest coins because by a voluntary agreement they decided to round cash transactions to the nearest 5 cents.

The euro banknotes have a common design on both sides that is dedicated to an artistic period of European architecture, avoiding representing any actually existing monument, and are issued in €500, €200, €100, €50. €20, €10, €5.

Design

The euro currency sign was designed after a public survey won by the design created by Alain Billjet. Its inspiration came from the Greek epsilon, cradle of European civilisation, and the first letter of Europe, while the two parallel lines certify the stability of the euro.

European Wealth

Wealth in the EU varies from country to country but, overall in the last ten years, it has improved a lot, therefore consequently raising European standards of living.
International Monetary Fund data show that it generates a nominal GDP of €12.581 billion.

According to the Eurostat figures the member country with the highest GDP per inhabitants in the 2007 is Luxembourg (followed by Ireland and the Netherlands).
At the other end of the scale, the country with the lowest is Bulgaria.

Compared with the rest of the world’s economies, the EU’s wealth per person is the third richest one, after the United States and Japan, while is the largest relating to Gross Domestic Product.