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and finance Allah shmoop What is the European monetary system

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Or to put it another way where do euros come

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from Most currencies cover a single country like the U

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S Has the dollar The U K has the pound

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of Zambia has the kwacha and so on But one

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of the world's major currencies covers an entire region the

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euro It's used in twenty three countries throughout Europe nineteen

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countries within the European Union and four small ones outside

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of the official U from France and Germany to Slovakia

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and Luxemburg That's where the euro plays in the sun

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When James Bond plays baccarat in Monaco he places his

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bets in euros When the Knights of Malta get their

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armor repaired well they pay in euros by castle in

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France are Chocola in Belgium or sauerkraut in Germany or

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whatever it is they eat in Portugal Yeah you're using

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euros Despite the fact that it's one of the world's

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widest circulating currencies the euro is actually one of the

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youngest It hasn't been around for a very long and

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by not around that long while we mean like it

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wasn't here in the nineteen nineties So while friends dominated

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TV and flannel shirts dominated fashion and Britney Spears dominated

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TRL while Europe was dominated by a patchwork of currencies

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France had the Frank Germany had the deutschmark Italy had

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the lira in Zambia still had the kwacha well the

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countries of the eurozone didn't exactly have smooth courtship In

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fact they marked the first couple of decades of the

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twentieth century with the biggest wars in history up to

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that point and then ended the century there with a

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common currency So how did they do this Well quick

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timeline From nineteen fourteen to nineteen eighteen most of the

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countries of Europe fought against each other in World War

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I In the nineteen twenties Germany suffered through a massive

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inflation and a painful political dislocation brought on by their

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defeat in the war Other countries faced their own traumas

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Fascism rampant in Italy paranoia and political division in France

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By the nineteen thirties that continent suffered through the ravages

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of the Great Depression and the rise of the Nazis

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From nineteen thirty nine to nineteen forty five another war

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Well this one was worse than the previous one That

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conflict WW two left Everyone in Europe bombed out and

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broke the center of the world economy then shifted to

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the United States Meanwhile Europe split into spheres of influence

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US dominated area in the West and the communist U

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S S R dominated the area in the east So

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for half a century or so an unending stream of

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wars economic dislocation rivalry and while political confrontation marked relations

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on the continent hardly a place ripe for currency unification

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So what happened Well here's the short answer Eastern Europe

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started instituting more socialist economic policies right after World War

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Two Meanwhile the Western countries especially France the UK and

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what was then known as West Germany started opening up

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trade in a new series of treaties from the nineteen

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fifties In the nineteen nineties the nations of Europe stopped

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being openly compay edited Justus They were adding expensive social

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programs Meanwhile the larger economies experienced an influx of these

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huge migration policy issues The migrants came from other European

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countries and largely from former colonies in Asia and Africa

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will eventually none of the major European countries could really

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afford to operate individually and by the late nineteen eighties

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the governments of the communist countries in Eastern Europe started

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to collapse The new regimes in these former Iron Curtain

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nations looked to join the growing European wide market East

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and West Germany reunited The former communist countries entered the

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trade treaties The European Union became one of the world's

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key economic organizations Pressure for a single currency began to

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grow well in nineteen ninety to the members of the

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European Community signed a treaty that pave the way for

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a single currency A series of treaties followed until the

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euro was introduced on January first nineteen ninety nine and

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by two thousand two the first countries had completed a

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changeover from their previous currencies Lesson here Don't LOSE HOPE

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ONE DAYS Great war can become tomorrow's free trade Unified

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currency zone Well a single Middle East currencies that ever

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coming India Pakistan Trade Zone A gift card that works

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at both Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park Yeah you never

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know In a few decades maybe

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