Interesting facts

Interesting Facts about the Euro

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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.