Memo: Euro coin counterfeiting in 2008

The total number of counterfeit euro coins removed from circulation in 2008 was 195 900, down from 211 100 the year before. While this development confirmed the success of the action to render euro coins safer for the users, Member States should maintain and intensify efforts to remove counterfeits from circulation. Two Commission initiatives presented in 2008 to further improve the fight against euro counterfeiting were successfully adopted by the Council in December: ensuring that financial institutions authenticate euro coins and banknotes before putting them back into circulation and ensuring that medals and tokens are sufficiently different from euro coins, so as to avoid potential confusion of coin users.

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