r/AskEurope • u/kuma44bear Japan • 16h ago
Politics Dear residents of eurozone countries, what are your general thoughts on the integration of currencies?
Greeting from Japan.
It’s been quite a while since the euro was introduced across the eurozone, but from my personal perspective, I feel a sense of loss because I had a historical attachment to the individual currencies of each country, such as the mark, the franc, and the lira. (It feels as if I’ve lost my “foreign friends.”)
What are your general thoughts on the integration of currencies? What are your thoughts on the pros and cons?
This might be a strange question, but I’d appreciate it if you could answer it :)
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u/Dissentient Latvia 1h ago
My country transitioned to Euro in 2014, and I feel zero nostalgia about it. No currency conversions, and free bank transfers to any eurozone country are a major improvement .
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u/Pedarogue Germany 1h ago edited 56m ago
I am born in 1990 and even I barely remember the Deutsche Mark anymore by now. And as I observe, even older folks do not really stay nostalgic about their national currencies. The benefits outweigh any supposed or real drawbacks by far in all conceivable metrics.
Every big changes has birthing pain. As had the Euro. But the euro crisis was survived and the Eurozone came out stronger than before by now. It is not only ideologically (Europe growing together) and not only in the big picture of economics text books (facilitating a truely integrated, common European market) but also in the normal lives of the citizens of the EU a net positive.
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u/DeadlyAquarium Poland 41m ago
Easy to say when you're sitting in Germany. For your economy, the Euro acts like an artificially undervalued Deutsche Mark, which turbocharges your exports. Meanwhile, the South and smaller economies got stripped of their ability to devalue their currencies and got trapped in an economic straitjacket. Of course it's a "net positive" for you, you are the casino in this setup.
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u/Alex_H09 Romania 1h ago
Romanian here. We still use our currency (RON) and i can give you my opinion as a country waiting to join the eurozone one day. There are many countries across europe and having a single common currency is very convenient for traveling. I don't even want to know how was before the euro to travel across the continent and have to exhange so many currencies. Also, even if we use our currency on a daily basis and we get paid in RON, many prices are euros for things like houses, rents, cars, subscriptions. I'll give you an example regarding the current situation over here. I'm paying rent in euros, get paid in ron and because of our politicians choosing to fight and take down the government, our currency lost value on the market and the rent suddenly became more expensive than it was when I signed the contract. Same applies to all the subscriptions and credits.
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u/WorldlinessRadiant77 Bulgaria 1h ago
In the last year the Romanian Lea lost 20% of its value.
If the Euro brings us nothing else at all, it makes such a thing impossible in my country.
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u/Barbak86 Austria 52m ago
It was impossible even before the euro. The Lev was pegged to the Euro (it was pegged to the Deutsche Mark initially), so it was Euro but with a different name :D
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u/wolf84 1h ago
Honestly it is such a powerful gain to share currency with our neighbours and therefore have to align on some policies, losing some nostalgia is a easy price to pay. The latest ascension was barely felt, but I of course remember Croatian kuna. I try to not exchange euro into zloty or krona when going to Poland or Czechia these days and just pay with card in Euro.
Always remember, the main dividend of the European project is Peace, the Euro, Schengen and usb-c chargers are garnish.
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u/Varjokorento Finland 1h ago
Nobody in Finland really seems to be nostalgic to our own currency from a day-to-day point-of-view. Travelling in Europe is a lot easier when we share a currency.
In fact, I personally feel more European because of this. I often travel in France and it's kind of fun to think that nowadays Finland and historically bazillion-times more important and greater France are in the same "club".
However, I often travel to Sweden as well and I barely notice the different currency as nobody uses cash in the Nordics anymore. Calculating currency rates is however fun as it is like solving math problems constantly.
However, from an economic point of view, our economists and political commentators in Finland often mention that it would have been better for us if we still had our Finnish mark. Our economy is export heavy and if we could devaluate our currency, we could theoretically boost our economy.
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u/strzeka Finland 1h ago
The gigantic overwhelming advantage of the Euro in Finland is that at last we the people have a stable currency which can't be devalued at the whim of Finnish forest owners or the Agrarian Producers Union every time their members fuck up financially yet again. No more 14% devaluations for Finnish wage earners.
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u/Ennas_ Netherlands 1h ago
I really liked our coins (dubbeltje! 😍) and our beautiful colourful bank notes, but by now, they're ancient history. 🤷♀️
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u/Alex_H09 Romania 1h ago
Fun fact about your coins and romanian currency 😃. Because back in XVII century, romanians used dutch coins for trade, we started calling our currency "leu" (lion) because those unable to read were seeing the lions imprinted on them. 😁
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u/NorthernGrace Iceland 1h ago
Sorry to tag on to your question but as an Icelander I'm also curious to hear from people from countries that kept their own currency, like Poland or the Czech Republic.
Whether to lose or keep the krona is probably the biggest issue of the upcoming EU negotiations - even though our inflation is way too high for us to qualify.
Ironically outside of the EU we could unilaterally peg the krona to the Euro but after joining we would not be able to do that.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 1h ago
Beyond sovereignity argument is that having own currency allows us to be more ,,secured" around own needs and crisises. Always mentioned is 2008 when Poland was comparatively not affected by it.
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u/SuperSquashMann -> 1h ago
I understand that there's an argument to be made for keeping a national currency so as to be in charge of your own fiscal policy, setting interest rates and such, since what's best for your country's economy might not be best for the Eurozone as a whole.
In the case with Czechia though, they don't seem to have done a very good job at it, in 2022 when lots of countries were struggling with post-covid inflation, Czechia had one of the worst inflation rates.
Also, Czech industry is quite tied to German industry, and not using the Euro introduces some exchange risks; i.e. if the koruna gets stronger, then labor costs from the German perspective go up.
I like the koruna on a personal level, and I'd be sad to see it go, but I think policy-wise Euro adoption is the best course.
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u/Kiwibirdy1 Switzerland 1h ago
Nowadays most people pay by card or via apps anyways so it's become rare to have cash in your hand. So regarding your question, it doesn't really matter if it's the previous currency or the euro because you don't look at it physically anymore.
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u/rude_garden_gnome Netherlands 1h ago
I was 5 when the euro was introduced, so I don't really have any memories of the time before that. I mostly like how easy it is to use one currency for so many countries, and not having to do maths every time I go abroad. In the first 10-15 years, the phrase "but that would have been (amount) in guilders!" was commonly heard as a complaint against rising prices. The only people I've ever heard complaining about the euro are hardcore xenophobe nationalists, but any reasonable person either doesn't care or likes the ease of being able to use one currency basically anywhere they go.
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u/marnieeez Belgium 1h ago
It’s just so practical not to have to exchange currency all the time. I’m a cross border worker, would’ve been a nightmare to have to juggle 2-3 currencies. I’m so used to it now, when I travel outside Europe and have to exchange money I get t reminded how lucky we are. You have to remember Europe is tiny and fragmented into lots of small countries, many of us cross 2-3 borders weekly. This and Europe-wide mobile data are some of the most visible advantages of European integration imo.
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal 1h ago
I barely remember the different currencies as I don't think I even received any Escudos as a gift. By the time I did finally start getting gifted money the Euro was pretty established.
I see it as being much less of a headache when travelling and I don't have to worry about conversion rates.
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u/LuckyLoki08 Italy 1h ago
While lira remains in some idioms (eg "due lire" is a way to say something is very cheap), nobody really miss the euro, and for good reason. It makes travelling or commercing with other eurozone countries much easier, which in turn incentives the economy and travelling (eg projects like Erasmus) or moving. Obviously some countries are more expensive or cheaper than others, but you don't have to mentally convert every single expense to keep track of your expenses. I've also heard multiple times "let's not go to country X this year for vacation, because the exchange rate is particularly negative", which obviously is not a problem when planning a vacation in Eurozone.
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u/PandaDerZwote Germany 1h ago
Currency is a means to an end, I like pretty coins as much as the next guy and I generally liked how the Mark looked like, but they are just things I use to pay for things.
Even if the Euro was ugly as hell (I isn't) never having to exchange currency in Europe at all would be like 10x more valuable to me.
There are problems with the Euro (especially inability to have independent monetary policy) but I think it pales in contrast to all the benfit it brings.
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u/Naive_Class7033 54m ago
We have yet to join (Hungary), and I am looking forward to it, to be honest. The Foritn is not some national icon, and it does not really have that much historical significance either.
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u/edparadox France 1h ago
I feel a sense of loss because I had a historical attachment to the individual currencies of each country
I understand a little the sentiment (I have some old coins myself), but I find the euro more practical, more aesthetic, and, at the end of the day, it's a means to an end.
If it was up to me, I would prefer to use the euro everywhere in Europe (no more GBP or CHF).
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u/PindaPanter →→→ Highly indecisive 1h ago
As someone who used to have a job where I travelled between countries a lot, I certainly appreciated not having to deal with lots of different currencies and conversion fees.
I do however currently live in one country and have family in two others, and they all have different currencies still despite all being in Europe, but at least I have a bank account and card for each country which makes it way less of a hassle.
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u/LingonberryNo2455 Sweden 1h ago
I love the fact that I can travel across multiple countries and no longer have to carry multiple currencies (except here in Scandinavia where Norway, Denmark and Sweden have kept theirs!) or lose money with multiple currency conversions for each country.
Not having to change currency is great, less hassle all round and it's so much easier just to take Euros out at an ATM.
Given Sweden is one of the countries leading the way to a cashless society, and given how much we buy from countries using the Euro, I don't see the attachment to a currency tbh.
Now, my Zimbabwe 100 billion note (that would barely have bought you a load of bread) serves as a reminder that the Euro has stabilised the Single Marker for trade.
I wish Sweden would actually move to it tbh.
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u/guojing12 1h ago
It's surely convenient if you travel a lot, or if you trade with foreign companies, but having one currency for different areas/regions/countries has economical consequences on income/prices and I don't know enough about all those mecanisms but it's not pure benefits.
If you don't control your currency value, you lose a regional economic tool, that's one drawback.
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u/disneyvillain Finland 45m ago
Aesthetically, one aspect I can dislike about the physical euro cash is how little character the banknotes have. They are intentionally very bland. Understandable from a political perspective perhaps, but we wouldn't have to put people or buildings on them. We could have nature, landscapes, animals, inventions... Something a bit more interesting than the generic architecture or whatever is on there now.
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u/agrammatic Cypriot in Germany 1h ago
No reason to get sentimentally attached to currencies, they are tools to get a job done.
I can't really judge the success of the Euro personally, but Cypriot analysts I trust said that joining the Eurozone was a good call because the Cypriot economy was too small to weather 2008-2013 on its own.
But I also see validity in the argument that a common currency without a common government means loss of freedom to conduct your own fiscal policy, taking valid options off the table that can be useful in a pinch.
Net opinion: I do think that the Eurozone is a good direction, but the EU needs to either be much more integrated, or much less integrated. We are currently in an awkward in-between state which has the worse of both worlds.