EMU and the Euro currency
One of the founding documents of the European Union is the European Union Treaty signed in Maastricht on 7th February 1992 which came into force after ratification by all member countries on 1st November 1993. The Maastricht Treaty, as it is familiarly called, introduced detailed provisions on economic and monetary union (hereinafter referred to as "EMÚ"). Its intention and outcome is to bring together economic policies of respective member states, to institute a common currency and the performance of the joint monetary policy with maintenance of price stability. Therefore it represents a significant progress, not only in the European integration of monetary matters, but also in the field of united foreign and protection policy, the administration of justice, internal affairs and EU citizenship.
So far, the single European currency has been adopted by 13 member states of the European Union: Germany, Belgium, Spain, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, The Netherlands, Portugal, France, Italy, Finland, Greece and Slovenia.
The EUR currency has seven bank notes in the following denominations - 500, 200, 100, 50, 20, 10, 5 EUR, and eight coins in the denominations of: EUR 2 and 1, and cents -50, 20, 10, 5, 2 and 1.
The symbol for Euro € was inspired by the Greek alphabet using the first letter in capital form from the word “Europe”.
The adoption of the EUR is subject to compliance with the Maastricht convergence criteria of 1991. Follow this link to view the full wording of the Maastricht convergence criteria.
