Coining a phrase for the Union’s single currency

Date: 14/12/1995

By Geoff Meade

THE letter writer who wrote in last week complaining about the proposed name of the single currency got it just about right: Euro is nothing.

Thank you W.P. Stigner from Paignton, Devon, England (my home town, as it happens), I couldn't have put it better myself. Actually, let's be honest, I could have put it better myself: Euro is zero.

By the time you read this, I will be in Madrid, parading around outside the summit venue with my “Euro Is Zero!” banner and encouraging others to do the same.

Metaphorically. You wouldn't catch me doing anything so demonstrative in real life as parading round and hollering slogans at people. But that doesn't mean I don't care.

No, this is my banner, right here on this page, so write it loud and clear: EURO IS ZERO!

Across the Union, citizens are trying to get to grips with the fact that this pathetic wimp of a word may very soon be one they use more than most others in their daily lives. This unfortunate coming together of three innocent vowels and a struggling consonant is in danger of taking over everyone's vocabulary.

Brave souls are already gargling with it and trying to make it mean something, but it doesn't. Find me a Euro (pardon the expression) citizen actively in favour of it and I'll show you someone who's in the pay of Yves-Thibault de Silguy, which is another odd collection of vowels and consonants, but at least it's big enough to get your teeth into.

The trouble with Euro is it's so slippery and small, an anaemic little word with nothing to cling on to, nothing to play with, nothing to roll around the tonsils and smack your lips with in any known language.

Even Jacques Santer's endorsement of the name is a negative one: he says the Commission doesn't have any pro- blem with it. Well, the rest of us do, because we've tried saying it and in a recent straw poll of colleagues, I discovered that when asked what they thought about it, nine out of ten people replied: “Yuk!”. The other one in ten responded: “There must be something better.”

Indeed there must, but the combined intellectual might of the EU's movers and shakers can't think what it is. I even thought about contacting the intriguingly-named Eurodollar International for some ideas, but it turns out to be a Brussels-based van rental company.

No, the summit this weekend must heed the word of the people and that word definitely isn't Euro. EURO IS ZERO!

Meanwhile, there are other problems to be faced and I bring word from the Permanent Technical Committee set up by the Mint Directors of the European Union member states under the auspices of the Mint Directors' Conference. Its task is to carry out the pledge contained in the Maastricht Treaty Article 105(a), 2, which states that the Council may adopt “measures to harmonise the denominations and technical specifications of all coins intended for circulation to the extent necessary to permit their smooth circulation”.

Let's see how they're getting on...

“Welcome to our 83rd exploratory meeting, ladies and gentlemen. Our task, and we should feel privileged to have been chosen to do it, is to clear away the currency confusion now rife across the EU. As you know, following our success in agreeing that the denominations of the coins and notes shall be a liberal mix of Judaism, Islam and Christianity, a group of historians, psychologists, artists and graphic designers is now at work on the exact designs.

“It is a matter of regret that we have already had to reject some of their initial thoughts, particularly the suggestion of Tintin's profile in a Viking helmet on a range of blue and gold notes, and Jacques Delors as a superman figure flying across member states for the coins, which will be striped in the colours of the member states' national flags. That work continues.

“Now to an even bigger problem. All over Europe, people are fiddling with microscopic coins. There are Britons losing 20-pence pieces in the back of change drawers and public phone boxes, and cracking their knuckles trying to get them out. There are Belgians going blind trying to focus on ludicrous half-franc coins which are only handed out by supermarkets, but which remain legal tender. There are Dutch folk with daft ten-cent coins smaller than a gnat's droppings, Germans fumbling with pfiddly pfennigs and Spaniards trying to barter with the tiniest, weeniest one-peseta pieces that you ever did see, assuming you can see them at all.

“But the biggest problem, of course, is money laundering. All over the Union, millions of notes are revolving in washing machines, usually hidden in shirt pockets and prone to crumbling when unfolded. This tendency is costing the global economy a fortune and is responsible for the well-known expression of poverty: 'I'm cleaned out.'

“Now to specifics: I think we have several jobs to do and our first surely is to deal with shape. It has always puzzled me that coins are round, while notes are rectangular, and I feel a dramatic shift of emphasis is now required.

“There would be clear benefits in having square coins, which would be much easier to fish out from behind car-seat cushions and easier for fingers to identify when scrabbling around in trouser pockets. It's also undoubtedly simpler feeding slot-machines with square coins than with round ones. I anticipate presenting a full report at a subsequent meeting on the efficacy of a range of five or six differently-sized square coins, all with different haut-relief designs on their edges for instant recognition.

“Now, turning to paper money, I am sure this, too, would benefit from a major overhaul, including the development of round notes, to eliminate totally the infuriating habit of large-denomination paper currency of folding itself into a tiny, chunky square and hiding in a back pocket while the washing is being sorted for a medium spin.

“There also would be less inclination on the part of the consumer to fold notes longways and wave them aloft between two fingers as a way of attracting attention in bars.

“This anti-social behaviour must be stopped and round notes are the answer. I suggest a series of large notes, the precise diameter of which would be decided after detailed negotiations with trouser and purse manufacturers, who have indicated a willingness to amend their specifications.

“Tests have already been carried out which show that, while square coins would be easier to fit into coin slots, round notes are less bothersome in note slots.

“Why this should be so is now the subject of a study by the Permanent Committee on Interesting Facts and need not trouble us here.

“I think we'll adjourn now. Anyone got change for the drinks machine?”