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At present, the euro is legal tender in 20 out of 27 European Union member states, [8] in addition to 6 countries not part of the EU (Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Andorra, Kosovo and Montenegro).
Belgium was the first country to introduce coins made of cupronickel in 1860. [ 3 ] In 1865, Belgium, France, Switzerland and Italy created the Latin Monetary Union [ 3 ] (to be joined by Greece in 1868): each would possess a national currency unit (franc, lira, drachma) worth 4.5 g of silver or 290.322 mg of fine gold , all freely exchangeable ...
The euro (symbol: €; currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, more commonly, the eurozone .
Euro (28) Composite (8) Other (9) No separate legal tender (16) Ecuador El Salvador Marshall Islands Micronesia Palau Panama Timor-Leste Andorra Monaco San Marino Vatican City Kosovo Montenegro Kiribati Nauru Tuvalu; Currency board (11) Djibouti Hong Kong ; ECCU Antigua and Barbuda Dominica Grenada
In 1998, eleven member states of the European Union had met the euro convergence criteria, and the eurozone came into existence with the official launch of the euro (alongside national currencies) on 1 January 1999 in those countries: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain ...
Alternatively the slash may be omitted, or replaced by either a dot or a dash. A widely traded currency pair is the relation of the euro against the US dollar, designated as EUR/USD. The quotation EUR/USD 1.2500 means that one euro is exchanged for 1.2500 US dollars. Here, EUR is the base currency and USD is the quote currency (counter currency).
The euro was established in 1999, but "for the first three years it was an invisible currency, used for accounting purposes only, e.g. in electronic payments". [2] In 2002, notes and coins began to circulate. The euro rapidly took over from the former national currencies and slowly expanded around the European Union.
Using a mechanism known as the "snake in the tunnel", the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was an attempt to minimize fluctuations between member state currencies—initially by managing the variance of each against its respective ECU reference rate—with the aim to achieve fixed ratios over time, and so enable the European Single Currency (which became known as the euro) to replace national ...