Euro

  

Categories: Forex, International

As European as electronic music and shirts unbuttoned to the naval. It's the currency of the European Union, though not every EU country gets to use it.

First introduced in 1999 to facilitate trade among the major European countries, the euro is now used (as of 2018) in 19 countries. This block is known as the eurozone, and includes Germany (where it replaced the mark), France (where it replaced the franc), Italy (where it replaced the lira), Ireland (where it replaced the pound) and Spain (where it replaced the peseta).

Other countries in the eurozone include Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, San Marino, Monaco, and the Vatican.

Greece really tried to get itself kicked out around 2010...a debt crisis in the country brought to light evidence that it basically lied about its economic health in order to get let into the euro in the first place. The other countries in the Eurozone helped bail it out though, and it continued to use the currency even after the crisis.

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countries within the European Union and four small ones outside

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of the official U from France and Germany to Slovakia

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and Luxemburg That's where the euro plays in the sun

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When James Bond plays baccarat in Monaco he places his

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bets in euros When the Knights of Malta get their

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armor repaired well they pay in euros by castle in

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France are Chocola in Belgium or sauerkraut in Germany or

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whatever it is they eat in Portugal Yeah you're using

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euros Despite the fact that it's one of the world's

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widest circulating currencies the euro is actually one of the

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youngest It hasn't been around for a very long and

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by not around that long while we mean like it

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wasn't here in the nineteen nineties So while friends dominated

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TV and flannel shirts dominated fashion and Britney Spears dominated

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France had the Frank Germany had the deutschmark Italy had

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the lira in Zambia still had the kwacha well the

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countries of the eurozone didn't exactly have smooth courtship In

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fact they marked the first couple of decades of the

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twentieth century with the biggest wars in history up to

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that point and then ended the century there with a

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common currency So how did they do this Well quick

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timeline From nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen most of the

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countries of Europe fought against each other in World War

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I In the nineteen twenties Germany suffered through a massive

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inflation and a painful political dislocation brought on by their

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defeat in the war Other countries faced their own traumas

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Fascism rampant in Italy paranoia and political division in France

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By the nineteen thirties that continent suffered through the ravages

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of the Great Depression and the rise of the Nazis

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From nineteen thirty nine to nineteen forty five another war

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Well this one was worse than the previous one That

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conflict WW two left Everyone in Europe bombed out and

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broke the center of the world economy then shifted to

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the United States Meanwhile Europe split into spheres of influence

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US dominated area in the West and the communist U

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S S R dominated the area in the east So

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for half a century or so an unending stream of

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wars economic dislocation rivalry and while political confrontation marked relations

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on the continent hardly a place ripe for currency unification

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started instituting more socialist economic policies right after World War

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Two Meanwhile the Western countries especially France the UK and

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what was then known as West Germany started opening up

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trade in a new series of treaties from the nineteen

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being openly compay edited Justus They were adding expensive social

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programs Meanwhile the larger economies experienced an influx of these

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huge migration policy issues The migrants came from other European

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countries and largely from former colonies in Asia and Africa

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will eventually none of the major European countries could really

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afford to operate individually and by the late nineteen eighties

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the governments of the communist countries in Eastern Europe started

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to collapse The new regimes in these former Iron Curtain

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nations looked to join the growing European wide market East

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and West Germany reunited The former communist countries entered the

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trade treaties The European Union became one of the world's

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key economic organizations Pressure for a single currency began to

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grow well in nineteen ninety to the members of the

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European Community signed a treaty that pave the way for

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a single currency A series of treaties followed until the

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euro was introduced on January first nineteen ninety nine and

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by two thousand two the first countries had completed a

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changeover from their previous currencies Lesson here Don't LOSE HOPE

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currency zone Well a single Middle East currencies that ever

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at both Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park Yeah you never

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