Launch of the euro

Date

1 January 1999 (notes & coins 2002)

Category

Economy & trade

Region

Europe

Era

Contemporary

Significance

On 1 January 1999 the euro was launched as the single currency of an initial group of European Union member states, beginning life as an electronic and accounting currency used for bank transfers, financial markets and exchange-rate calculations, while national notes and coins remained in circulation.

The European Central Bank assumed responsibility for a common monetary policy across the participating economies. Three years later, on 1 January 2002, euro banknotes and coins entered circulation in twelve countries with a combined population of around 308 million, replacing long-established national currencies such as the German mark, French franc, Italian lira and Spanish peseta in one of the largest cash changeovers in history; nearly 15 billion banknotes and around 52 billion coins were produced. Adoption was swift, with the great majority of cash transactions switching to euro within weeks. The euro deepened European economic integration, eliminated exchange-rate risk within the bloc and created the world's second most important reserve currency. Its design also embedded a monetary union without a matching fiscal union, a structural tension that would become acute during the later Eurozone sovereign-debt crisis.

Empires active in 1 January 1999 (notes & coins 2002)

• Portuguese Empire
  1415 CE – 1999 CE

Related economy & trade events

• The Eurozone sovereign-debt crisis
  Beginning 2 May 2010
• The global financial crisis and the collapse of Lehman Brothers
  15 September 2008
• China's Reform and Opening-Up Begins Under Deng Xiaoping
  December 18, 1978
• The dot-com bubble bursts
  March 2000
• China joins the World Trade Organization
  11 December 2001
• The Asian financial crisis
  Began 2 July 1997

Further reading

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

The wider story

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Peter Frankopan

Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.

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