Preceding national currencies of the Eurozone
Currency Code Rate Fixed on Yielded
Austrian schilling ATS 13.7603 31 Dec 1998 2002
Belgian franc BEF 40.3399 31 Dec 1998 2002
Dutch guilder NLG 2.20371 31 Dec 1998 2002
Finnish markka FIM 5.94573 31 Dec 1998 2002
French franc FRF 6.55957 31 Dec 1998 2002
German mark DEM 1.95583 31 Dec 1998 2002
Irish pound IEP 0.787564 31 Dec 1998 2002
Italian lira ITL 1,936.27 31 Dec 1998 2002
Luxembourgian franc LUF 40.3399 31 Dec 1998 2002
Portuguese escudo PTE 200.482 31 Dec 1998 2002
Spanish peseta ESP 166.386 31 Dec 1998 2002
Greek drachma GRD 340.750 19 June 2000 2002
Slovenian tolar SIT 239.640 11 July 2006 2007
Cypriot pound CYP 0.585274 10 July 2007 2008
Maltese lira MTL 0.429300 10 July 2007 2008
Slovak koruna SKK 30.1260 8 July 2008 2009
The euro was established by the provisions in the 1992Maastricht Treaty. In order to participate in the currency, member states are meant to meet strict criteria such as abudget deficit of less than three per cent of their GDP, a debt ratio of less than sixty per cent of GDP, low inflation, and interest rates close to the EU average. In the Maastricht Treaty, the
Economists who helped create or contributed to the euro include Robert Mundell, Wim Duisenberg, Robert Tollison, Neil Dowling, Fred Arditti and Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa. The name eurowas devised on 4 August 1995 by Germain Pirlot, a Belgian Esperantist and ex-teacher of French and history, and officially adopted in
Due to differences in national conventions for rounding and significant digits, all conversion between the national currencies had to be carried out using the process of triangulation via the euro. The definitive values in euro of these subdivisions (which represent the exchange rates at which the currency entered the euro) are shown at right.
The rates were determined by the Council of the European Union, based on a recommendation from the European Commission based on the market rates on 31 December 1998. They were set so that one European Currency Unit (ECU) would equal one euro. The European Currency Unit was an accounting unit used by the EU, based on the currencies of the member states; it was not a currency in its own right. They could not be set earlier, because the ECU depended on the closing exchange rate of the non-euro currencies (principally the pound sterling) that day.
The procedure used to fix the irrevocable conversion rate between the drachma and the euro was different, since the euro by then was already two years old. While the conversion rates for the initial eleven currencies were determined only hours before the euro was introduced, the conversion rate for the Greek drachma was fixed several months beforehand.
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. Their exchange rates were locked at fixed rates against each other, effectively making them mere non-decimal subdivisions of the euro. The euro thus became the successor to the European Currency Unit (ECU). The notes and coins for the old currencies, however, continued to be used as legal tender until new euro notes and coins were introduced on 1 January 2002.
The changeover period during which the former currencies' notes and coins were exchanged for those of the euro lasted about two months, until 28 February 2002. The official date on which the national currencies ceased to be legal tender varied from member state to member state. The earliest date was in
