Brussels, 18/04/2001 (Agence Europe) - Nicole Fontaine, European Parliament President, and Christa Randzio-Plath, President of the institutions Economic and Monetary Committee, have sent a call to the European Central Bank (ECB) for the small denomination Euro notes to be made available to the public before 1 January 2002. They also invite the EU 15 Finance Ministers to tackle this issue during their informal meeting in Malmo, scheduled for next Friday and Saturday. In a joint letter to Wim Duisenberg, President of the ECB, and to central bankers, Mrs Fontaine and Mrs Randzio-Plath warn against "the danger of bottlenecks" that could arise on 1 January. They also underline their hope that the Governors of the Central Banks "abandon their inflexible position and take a decision that would be in the interests if ordinary people". Thus they suggest making available 5 and 10 Euro notes a few days before the fateful day. Finally they feel that it is a priority to soothe the concerns of the retail trade, which fears an excessively rapid exhaustion of funds in the tills in the face of an influx of large denominations notes that individuals have withdrawn from cash machines.