Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-01-16-Speech-3-133"
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"en.20020116.10.3-133"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, speaking with one voice through the Central Bank, the governments of the euro zone countries are stating and affirming that Europeans have given an enthusiastic, even euphoric welcome to the euro, the imperial currency, the new Reichsmark. According to official reports, no problems have marred its triumphant arrival. Fifteen days after the euro’s introduction, the evidence is for all to see: the great majority of transactions are being made in euro.
To put it bluntly, these crude propaganda-driven reports are very wide of the mark. Nothing has really worked as planned. There was a shortage of euro in the first days, banks refused to do their work by refusing to carry out currency exchanges or by placing a limit on them, and, to top it all, by trying to charge for the transaction. Cash dispensers cannot issue EUR 20 notes, vending machines are refusing to accept euros produced in another country and the opportunities for counterfeiters are increasing because no one knows how to identify the new notes. We have to admit it: European citizens are not using the euro out of enthusiasm, but under duress because it is increasingly difficult to get hold of their national currency.
Some Germans, for whom there is no transition period, are continuing to pay in deutschmarks even though this currency ceased to be legal tender on 1 January.
There is no advantage, therefore, to using the euro for everyday purchases. It only causes difficulties and is costly to everyone, not to mention that its introduction has meant States have had to abandon their sovereignty unnecessarily. Everyone in Europe now has a foreign currency and we are also seeing a return to rising prices. Everyone realises, when doing their shopping, that prices are soaring, everywhere and in highly worrying proportions, particularly for everyday goods and essential items.
This is perhaps not quite the same as the Ruhr of the 1920s but this is similar to what happened in the 1970s. January’s price index may be saved by the sales but let us wait for the figures for the whole year. Let us also wait for the first anti-social effects of competition, which the euro will have on salaries, relocations and redundancies, to be felt. Therefore, in the name of the right of nations to self-determination, we would like to affirm the right of nations to bring back their national currency, in the same way that the former Soviet states, when freed from the yoke of Soviet federalism, brought back theirs."@en1
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