In January of 1999, 11 European countries adopted the Euro. They will continue to use the common currency instead of their existing national currencies for large-scale trade and payments. Within 3 years time, the national currencies of each country will be consigned to history. By uniting under a single currency, participants of the European Economic Monetary Union (EMU) aim to promote a single European market, one roughly the size of the US market. With Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain operating under the euro, the European market will be capable of growing and expanding at a faster rate. The Euro is feasible because it allows for anti-inflationary credibility. Under a single currency, countries with a higher level of inflation can tie their currency to a country with lesser inflation, and in turn, help reinforce each other. The Euro has been designed to sustain low inflation rates and stimulate economic growth and employment. How well this will work, depending on the members willing to get involved, is an issue still in question.

In the year 2002, governments of the European Union will have six months to replace almost 13 million bank notes and 80 billion coins. Millions of existing vending machines will have to be adapted to accept the new coins, as well as pay phones, slot machines, and parking meters. In Germany alone, this process is expected to cost at least half a billion dollars. Cash will increasingly give way to plastic. Internet and catalog sales will reach an all time high. Smart cards with small microprocessor chips will make transactions easier for banks, merchants, and customers. The new Euro prices will make it easier for people to compare the cost of identical products in different countries. Therefore, a 7up will no longer cost twice as in much in Germany as in Spain, or half as much in France as in Belgium. Businesses will have to adjust to a whole new environment for doing business.

Exempt from having to pay currency exchange commissions, tourists will have more money to spend. Currently, a tourist in Europe with $1,000 US who visits 15 countries, changes his or her money in each of them, can end up with the equivalent of $500 US without spending a dime. With the elimination of commissions, Europe's exchange bureaus will lose almost 2 billion dollars by the year 2010. Tourists on average will save $13 per cross border visit within the EU as a result of the unified currency.

With the end of the battle over a common currency system, Europeans have a more critical task before them: to agree on a common monetary policy and manage the social and political conflicts that the process will unleash.

Being that the new unified monetary unit will replace much of the national currencies of the Countries involved, controversy has sparked debating the severity of such a momentous change. The immediate controversy lies in the transition and adjustment to such a system. The countries involved vary in their economic and social structures. For instance, a monetary policy that might suit France and Germany could prove inefficient and costly for Spain or Portugal. Europeans will now need to transfer their loyalties from their national currency to the Euro. In Italy, where confidence in the lira has never been high, that is not as difficult as it is in Germany, where people have had great confidence in their deutsche marks. In the case of changing to the euro, strong feelings of nationalism are involved, and giving up a national currency for one representing eleven countries is a difficult emotional adjustment. Older generations in Europe will continue to count in their own native currencies; therefore this change will remain an extremely sensitive social issue in several countries.

Although the Euro may pose a threat to many of the countries involved in the plan, it makes a strong statement about where Europe is going in the future. The Euro presents tremendous benefits which will help a country politically as well as economically despite the immediate foreseeable consequences. There is strong public sentiment throughout Europe behind lowering interest/inflation rates and improving economic status and at this point, it would take severe economic and political difficulties to shake any of the current members loose from the Euro even while the plan rests on insecure foundations. There is still something very solid and comforting that says, "We are part of a larger organization."