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Euro

May 11, 2011 – 5:24 pm

Euro
Euro is an authorized currency of the EU (European Union). It is well-known and used in fifteen countries which are collectively known as Eurozone (Austria, Cyprus, Belgium, Finland, Greece, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Luxembourg, France, Malta, Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Portugal). Euro is also used in 5 other countries with the official agreements and 6 other countries with no such agreements. Therefore it is the only currency for around 320 million Europeans. With over 610 billion euros in the market in the year 2006, the euro becomes the highest shared value of money in circulation worldwide, having crossed the U S dollar. Taking the official estimates of the 2007 GDP, Eurozone is the leading economy globally by the March 2008 after Euro/Dollar exchange price surpassed 1.56.

Euro was set up by the supplies in the year 1992 Maastricht Treaty on European Union which was used to launch a monetary and economic union. To take part in the contemporary currency, the member states met certain strict criteria like budget deficit beyond 3 % of their total GDP. In the Treaty, the UK and Denmark were approved exclusion from moving to the stage of the monetary union that resulted in the launch and introduction of Euro.

The currency, Euro was made available to the world monetary markets like an accounting currency in the year 1999 and was launched as the physical banknotes and coins on 1 January in the year 2002. The Euro is administered and managed by Frankfurt-based ECB (European Central Bank) and the Eurosystem. As a self-governing bank, the European Central Bank has the solitary authority to set the monetary policy. It takes part in the minting, printing and distribution of the coins and notes in all the member states and also the functioning of Eurozone payment systems.

The Euro has a very distinctive characteristic which makes it very easy to understand and use. A Euro is divided into hundred cents. All the circulating coins have a same side that shows the value. Now the old map has been replaced by the map of Europe recently. The Euro coins are freely used from one country to the other that have adopted the same currency.