Euro on track despite muddles

BRUSSELS, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- With exactly four weeks to go to the launch of the European Union's new single currency, the euro, is on track and will not be delayed, according to the monetary affairs Commissioner at the EU's executive, the European Commission.

Pedro Solbes highlighted Tuesday there are still a number of "unresolved problems."

The notes and coins for the currency that has been used in financial transactions for the past year in tandem with fixed national currencies will appear on Jan. 1 -- a holiday right across Europe when banks and financial institutions are closed. Its effective launch in shops and stores will likely be Jan. 2 for most EU citizens adding to the promised confusion.

Surveys suggest that not enough has been done to explain the new currency to small and medium-sized businesses and there is a recognized danger that the euro may become entangled in peoples' minds with the effects of a general economic slowdown.

In Italy the government has acknowledged at a meeting of EU finance ministers in Brussels Tuesday there have been delays in distributing the notes and coins. In France, bank workers are threatening to strike.

Solbes announced plans Tuesday for daily exchanges of information among the 12 participating countries. Denmark, Sweden and Britain have not joined and are not participating in the distribution of $47 billion worth of coins and $12 billion of notes that will be needed when shops start trading after the New Year celebrations.

Counterfeiting is a major fear and police across Europe have been trying to track organized gangs preparing to exploit people's ignorance of their new bank notes. EU leaders say the creation of a single currency from Ireland to Greece will bring down prices by making it easier to compare them in different member states and will fit an economy almost the size of that of the United States.

However, consumer organizations are already complaining that vending machine owners and supermarkets are building in inflation by adapting machines to accept euro coins worth more than the coins currently accepted.

At stake is the future of the currency to which some 70 percent of Germans are said to be hostile as well as large numbers of people across Europe who would prefer to keep their national notes and coins. Inflation and the marking down of the currency after Jan. 1 could spell disaster for the first international single currency.