The arrival of the euro: their money, our future?

Three hundred million Europeans awakes this morning at one New Year's Day and a new extraordinary reality which constitutes the experiment more �the BOLD� ever tried to bind people together by the money that they employ.

Announced Arctic circle with Cote D 'Azure by the fireworks, champagne and the constraints of Beethoven 'the ode of S to the joy, E-day is born after years from planning meticulous person for the greatest never change from currency and from the decades from the bitter discussion still nondefinite from Great Britain - about into which distance the continent the 'nations of S should integrate.

Euro is your money, it is our money. He 's our future. It is a small piece of Europe in our hands, president Commission europ�enne, Romano Prodi, acknowledged in Brussels.

Among concern above rises and the counterfeit of the prices, there was no confusion of the richness of the rhetoric or the quiver of the moment after midnight when the automatic teller machines started to escape from new euro crunching notes, the first moreover than 45bn to write circulation.

Helsinki and Athens, one hour in front of the remainder of the euro areas of 12 members, were the first to emit the money, which will have greatest circulation in Europe since the sum of money of the Roman empire and is already in the second place only with the US dollar Like currency of total reserve.

Mood was uniformly optimistic with the parts, the historical reconstitutions and the ceremonies offering the good-bye to the marks, the francs, the pesetas and the Liras one time-snuffed.

Our countdown is principal towards new, of era Wim Duisenberg, Dutch president of Central Bank Europ�enne (ECB), acknowledged in Frankfurt. By employing euros, we will give a clear signal of confidence and hope which we have in the tomorrow the 's Europe.

One day high, Gerhard Schr�der, the German chancellor, struck the highest note. We are pilot paddle of an age which the people of Europe dreamed of during centuries: travel and payment without border in, commun run of currency it said in a message of New Year's Day.

Mr. Prodi marked the change by buying flowers of the euros, not schillings, at the time of a visit towards Vienna. And in the remarks which will alarm a British government observing touchlines uncomfortably, the former Italian Prime Minister pawned that the arrival of the euro in the people of the 'pockets S to lead inescapable to a more economic coordination - great fear of the skeptics.

Brussels celebrated last night with fireworks and the dance. But an event earlier was embarrassing badly when an euro giant symbol did not go up to the top the frontage of the commission of the 'building of S Charlemagne, producing sardonic comments about a bad beginning.

However when it finally came, it was one large and very formal moment, an act of sition of tran of stagey - a rite of passage on a continental scale.

So much about Europe 'date awaited for a long time of S with the destiny was known as which it was difficult to sort the foreseeable hyperbole of reality.

For the innumerable common people of Lisbon towards Luxembourg, that could mean days or weeks of the fight with not very familiar sums, being aligned with the automatic teller machines of bank, fears of the tear to far, and not being able to decipher invoices or slips of wages.

But it will be also the first time that the EU, seen by so much much like bureaucracy without face, will have the real significance. Hope of civils servant whom the psychological impact of the euro will help to humanize the remote establishments and to breathe the life in a discussion precedented of UNO having to start in March about the constitutional future of the union.

To worry questions the handle, however, about the state of the economies of the zone euros: largest, Germany, is already in a deceleration and dangerously close opening a breach the budgetary restrictions established by the ECB, whose interest rate one-size-fits-all can be examined in more difficult moments.

Like it or hate-the - and it is that a sure forecast for 2002 that Great Britain 'of fermenting passions of S will be brought more close to the point of boiling - the euro is a step of giant for European integration.

According to established rules by the treaty of Maastricht in 1991, the euro began the life on January 1, 1999 when 11 countries, follow-ups of Greece, returned their line to devaluate the currency or to change debtor rates.

The 12 old currencies will pass up to eight weeks in duelle circulation before they are replaced by euro notes which incarnates the generic devices of architecture and the culture European. The coins maintain the images national side - of Ireland 'Celtic toothing-stone of S in Germany 'eagle double-directed by S - and will support the monarch the 'chief of S if Great Britain never adheres.

Origins of euro 'of S turn over to the visions of post-war period of the European unit, but the large business - Germany reunified for the rendering of the powerful mark - was sealed by Fran�ois Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and Jacques Delors, then the president of mission of COM, after the Berlin Wall is descended.

Sweden and Denmark are the other members of EU to still decide euro. But with to 10 additional countries place to join the EU in next years, 500m that people could employ the euro towards the end of the decade.

Not each one liked yesterday 'rhetoric of S. Italy 'the minister of saving in S, Giulio Tremonti, said Stampa: I find the idea that the euro will bring peace and the end fights particularly odd. Fight the end when the consommationism triumphs over the romanticism.

Because the countdown approached its end last night, the banknotes 6bn and the coins 37bn in value .144bn had been already distributed.

Simple currency of launching of Europe 'of S is, altogether, a strongly ambitious jump and prepared well in the darkness. But she will be judged at the end close if she meets the test of that simplest of old proverbs: nothing succeeds like success.