KT -
Euro introduction goes smoothly in Italy.
theaustralian.news.com.au
"Italy's "euro rage" clouds currency
By Natasha Bita, Florence
January 08, 2002
"I WANT to pay with Italian money," insisted the elderly gentleman queuing for his morning coffee in Florence. "None of those euros for me!"
His devotion to the dwindling supply of Italian lire was touchingly patriotic, but symptomatic of a public distrust that has kept Italy trailing the rest of Europe in adopting the newborn currency.
Queues, confusion and scams have accompanied the euro since its public debut in Italy a week ago, sparking a series of strikes and the resignation of a government minister.
Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero quit at the weekend in protest against anti-euro remarks by colleagues in the conservative Government, whose flag-waving appeal to innate Italian pride sometimes borders on "euro-sceptic".
The Prime Minister, 65-year-old media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, who was sworn in yesterday as Foreign Minister to replace Mr Ruggiero, did little to whip up Italians' enthusiasm when he declared: "I imagine it won't be easy at first, especially for people my age." His right-wing Reforms Minister, Umberto Bossi, pitched in that "personally, I don't give a damn about the euro and I don't think anyone else cares about it either".
Perhaps Mr Bossi was right – by the end of the first week, Italians were using euros to pay for a mere quarter of their transactions, well below the European average of 40 per cent.
Most had little choice but to rely on lire, given the difficulties in obtaining euro notes. Only one in three automatic teller machines was stocked with the new currency, despite government assurances that 90 per cent of ATMs would be spitting out crisp euro notes on January 1.
Most machines were still waiting to be filled with their first euro bills, or had already run dry. Others were out of order because the virgin notes tended to stick together, jamming machines.
Highways were jammed, too, as Italians flocked back from Christmas holidays to encounter chaos at toll booths. Hardly anyone had euro coins to pay the automatic toll, resulting in 7km queues of frustrated drivers who let off steam at the toll-booth workers, who were themselves unfamiliar with the new money. In the end, they walked off the job. So did Italy's bank tellers, who called a national strike yesterday to protest against the banks' "scarce attention" to managing the currency changeover. Now shopkeepers are warning they will run out of small change during the bank strike.
Post offices, too, are in the front line of "euro rage". The euro's debut coincided with pension day, so postal workers had to deal with hordes of impatient and confused pensioners lining up to collect cash payments in a strange currency. It took an average wait of 90 minutes."
Regards, Don |
