Luxembourg, 07/10/2003, (Agence Europe) - Finance and Economics Ministers for the twelve Euro Area member states called on the European Central Bank (ECB) to accelerate works in view of the creation of a 1 Euro banknote, announced on Monday evening in Luxembourg, the acting Eurogroup President, the Italian Minister Giulio Tremonti. Last year the ECB was entrusted with undertaking a feasibility study on the matter, but the Eurogroup favoured accelerating the process, insinuated Mr Tremonti for whom this is an instrument that seems valuable in the fight against inflation.
Consensus is being sought on the matter and many ministers expressed a favourable opinion and called for time delays over the creation of this note to be shortened; the ECB is studying this hypothesis, asserted Mr Tremonti who spoke of population 'stress' caused by this change in the 'method for assessing the currency.' In countries like his own, these difficulties are explained due to three main causes, underlined the Italian Minister answering a question from a journalist: - the commercial structure: in Italy there exists a great number of small traders, noted Mr Tremonti; - the limited ability of people in my country (but also in other member states, according to him) to use coins of high value: we are not used to granting great importance to coins, recalls the Italian Minister; - the age of the population: for a youth, it is very easy to change records, to move from one musical style to another or from one style of jeans to another. Though, for the elderly population, the change of currency has a different effect than that on the young, noted the Eurogroup President, for whom these are 'banal considerations,' which are not present in economics text books, but which 'reflect reality.'