Euro launch wins praise as Europe returns to work

Brussels, Jan 2: The overwhelmingly glitch-free launch of euro notes and coins won widespread plaudits on Wednesday as millions of Europeans returned to work after the New Year holiday in the first major test of the new currency.

Financial markets saluted what Spain’s El Pais daily called the "watchmaker’s precision" of the rollout of the new money by marking the euro up more than one per cent against the dollar, yen and the British pound, which remains outside the euro area.

Early morning travellers faced some delays, however, due to the unfamiliarity of the new coinage, launched simultaneously in 12 European Union countries that are home to more than 300 million citizens from midnight on January 1.

But even scattered banking strikes in France and Italy and a Greek bank robbery seemed unlikely to cause major disruption.

Long tailbacks were reported at motorway toll gates around Rome and outside Paris as motorists returning from their New Year break struggled with change.

Commuters using public transport faced fewer delays. Ticket machines accepted both euros and old national currency in Madrid, Antwerp, Paris and Lisbon, but it was euros only in Milan, Italy’s financial capital.

"Look, it’s easy. Fifty, 75, 85, 90, damn, we’re short,"Tania Mastroiacovo, a 17-year-old student told a friend puzzled by the new money at the city’s busy Central railway station.

"It’s chaotic having two currencies at the same time. If we’d just gone straight into the euro instead of having the lira as well, then perhaps we’d have enough change," she grumbled as she joined a long queue waiting to buy tickets at a news-stand.

The lira, mark, guilder and nine other currencies will be phased out by the end of February but the EU’s executive, the European Commission, forecasts that more than half of all transactions in the euro area will be taking place in the new money by the end of this week. "We are very happy with the way things are going but of course we will remain vigilant," said Jan Smets, in charge of the changeover at the Belgian National Bank.

Newspapers hailed a remarkably smooth start to the biggest monetary switch in history, which defied forecasts of chaos.

"Euro without a hitch," declared France’s Liberation daily on its front page. "The euro survives its baptism of fire," agreed business daily Les Echos.

Germany’s mass circulation Bild, once a standard bearer of Deutschemark patriotism, enthused: "We are sharing this feeling of a euro birth with 300 million Europeans. Forget yesterday. Look bravely to tomorrow. Let’s all start afresh!" Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad invoked the historic dimension: "The smooth introduction of the new currency in 12 of the 15 EU countries is not only a technical and logistical achievement, but is principally a historic milestone in the war- and conflict-stained history of the old continent."

— Reuters