The European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) Euro Currency Unit

On 1 January 1999, eleven countries of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) decided to give up its own currency and adopt the Euro (EUR) currency: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy , Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Vatican City also participated in this transition. Greece followed suit on 1 January 2001 Slovenia on 1 January 2007 Cyprus and Malta on 1 January 2008 and Slovakia on 1 January 2009.
It should be noted that any place that previously used one or more of the coins listed below has now also adopted the euro. This applies to the Principality of Andorra, the Principality of Monaco and the Republic of San Marino. This of course applies automatically to all territories, departments, possessions, or group of euro-zone countries, such as the Azores, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, Europa Island, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Juan de Nova, Madeira, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion, Saint-Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, to name a few.

Banknotes and coins began circulating in the countries before 1 January 2002. At that time, all operations in those countries are valued in euros, and the "old" notes and coins of these countries were removed from circulation. The precise dates that each "old" stopped being the legal currency indicated in the table below.

For convenience, and because their values are now irrevocably fixed against the euro as indicated above, the XE.com Universal Currency Converter will continue to support these units, even after its withdrawal from circulation. Moreover, most of the euro coins will start being physically convertible into special places for a period of several years. For details, see the official website of the euro as described in the section corresponding links.

A note on spelling and capitalization: the official spelling of the euro currency in the English language is "euro" with a lowercase "e". However, the industry practice of writing overwhelmingly dominant "Euro", with a capital "E". As the names of other currencies are capitalized in general use, it helps to differentiate the name "euro" currency EUR sense from the more general adjective "euro", which means nothing remotely to do with Europe. This is particularly prevalent in the marketing and advertising, where it is common to read sentences like: "Try new hair gel Goop ™ with genuine euro style and celebrate!" However, this is very subtle linguistic nuance, even for native speakers of English. It is also important to note that there are many different official languages of the name or euro unit, which also may or may not coincide with general usage.