ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 14, 1996 TAG: 9612160052
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DUBLIN, IRELAND
SOURCE: Associated Press
Flashing bills ranging from 5 to 500 euros, the European Union unveiled its new currency Friday after striking the political deal needed to put the money into the continent's cash registers.
The compromise was the result of some old-fashioned horse trading between German Chancellor Helmut Kohl and French President Jacques Chirac on the first day of a two-day EU summit at the 13th century Dublin Castle.
The new currency, the euro, is scheduled to be launched Jan. 1, 1999, but will not be in general circulation until 2001. It probably will be worth about 1 dollar.
To join the EU's single currency, countries must have budget deficits of 3 percent or less, debts of less than 60 percent of gross domestic product, and low inflation. Debate for much of the past year has been over how to make countries keep to these limits.
Friday's ``stability pact'' agreement would fine countries that exceed the criteria unless they are victims of a recession, a drop of 2 percent in gross domestic product. In the case of drops of less than 2 percent, exemptions can be negotiated. A majority of EU finance ministers will have to approve the fines before they can be imposed.
Chirac came out a victor by making fines a political decision by finance ministers rather than automatic, as the Germans wanted. Kohl saved face by getting the drop in the gross domestic product that triggers an exemption increased from 1.5 percent to 2 percent.
Showing Europeans what is coming, officials proudly unveiled the money - shades of gray, red, blue, orange, green, yellow and purple for the bank notes of 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 euros, respectively.
To avoid favoring any one country, designers did not use likenesses of famous people or specific buildings, opting instead for anonymous bridges, windows and doorways.
The architecture represents artistic periods including Roman, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, 19th-century industrial and modern.
``It highlights the vision of a common future in the next century but looks back on shared culture,'' said Alexander Lamfalussy, president of the European Monetary Institute.
Not everyone shared his view.
``Ugh! You wouldn't want to be looking at that with a hangover, would you?'' exclaimed Maura King, a lawyer in Dublin, as she eyed the garish yellow 200 euro bill.
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