Euro

Euro It's coming! It's Coming! And now its here the Euro Prior to 1999 the EU countries (Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Finland, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain) all had their own currencies. That all changed on January 1, 1999 the euro became the official currency; however the transition was not an easy one. The introduction of the euro, Europe's single currency has been in the planning and preparation stage for over ten years. One of the reasons for such the long wait was the skepticism of the mere idea of a single currency that the euro brought about globally. The idea came about in the early 1970's but was tabled due to a rise in oil prices. Again in the early 1980's the idea surfaced again and was agreed upon in 1992 by the Maastricht Treaty. After the agreement there were certain criteria that each country had to adopt, such as a controlled rate of inflation and the debt/GDP ratio. These things had to be accomplished in order be apart of the euro and have a smooth transition to the new currency. From a global aspect there were many doubts about the change euro, currency, been, trade, based, american, prices, business, rate, dollar, countries, cost, businesses, way, transition, small, single, price, over, one, lead, introduction, inflation, idea, however, exchange, european, economy, consumers, competition, benefit, about, things, stability, sites