The euro is the official currency of 19 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also used by four European microstates that are not EU members, the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, as well as unilaterally by Montenegro and Kosovo. Outside Europe, a number of special territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency.
About Euro in brief
The euro is the official currency of 19 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also used by four European microstates that are not EU members, the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, as well as unilaterally by Montenegro and Kosovo. Outside Europe, a number of special territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency. Over 200 million people worldwide use currencies pegged to the euro. The name euro was officially adopted on 16 December 1995 in Madrid. The euro is divided into 100 cents. In Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. In practice, the ECB’s banknotes are put into circulation by the NCBs, thereby incurring matching liabilities vis-à-vis the ECB. The Eurosystem participates in the printing, minting and distribution of notes and coins in all member states, and the operation of the eurozone payment systems. All circulating coins have a common side showing the denomination or value, and a map in the background. For the denominations except the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, the old map was replaced by a map of Europe also showing countries outside the EU like Norway, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Turkey.
The coins are issued in denominations of €1, €2, €3, €4, €5, €6, €7, €8, €9, €10, €12, €15, €20, €25, €30, €50, €60, €75, €100, €110, €150, €200, €250, €300, €400, €500, €600, €700, €800, $1,000, $2,500, $3,500 and $5,000. All coins are designed by Luc Luycx, who also designed the Euro coin of 2002, which has an image of Europe on the reverse. The 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-24-25-26-27-28-29-30-28, 30-30, 31-32, 32-33, 33-34, 34-35, 35-36, 36-37, 37-38, 38-39, 39-38 and 39-39. The currency is the second-largest and second-most traded currency in the foreign exchange market after the United States dollar. As of December 2019, with more than €1.3 trillion in circulation, the euro has one of the highest combined values of banknotes in circulation in the world. The European Central Bank has sole authority to set monetary policy. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty obliges most EU member states to adopt the euro upon meeting certain monetary and budgetary convergence criteria, although not all states have done so. The United Kingdom and Denmark negotiated exemptions, while Sweden turned down the euro in a non-binding referendum in 2003.
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This page is based on the article Euro published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 08, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
