This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Preparations for public administrations
This working paper from the European Commission provides comparable country-by-country information on the current state of national changeover plans.
ACT
Commission working paper of 16 December 1997: Preparations for the changeover of public administrations to the euro [SEC (97) 2384 final - Not published in the Official Journal].
SUMMARY
As regards the practical arrangements for the changeover of national public administrations, the scenario adopted at the Madrid European Council meeting provides that:
"The generalisation of the use of the euro for public sector operations will occur in all participating Member States at the latest when the euro banknotes and coins are fully introduced. The time frame will be laid down in Community legislation and might leave some freedom to individual Member States."
Given the often considerable structural differences between Member States' constitutions and legal systems, the Commission has refrained from proposing harmonised changeover measures for national public administrations, except for the two regulations which form the legal framework for the euro.
Under these arrangements, national administrations may offer private economic agents the option of using the euro unit for all their financial flows and communications with the State. In countries which intend to offer this option a provision usually stipulates that, once a company has chosen the euro unit before the end of the transitional period, it cannot revert to the national currency unit.
The preparations so far made for the changeover to the euro can be summarised as follows:
The paper also contains a technical fact sheet for each country, giving an overview of the current state of the preparations carried out by public administrations.
Last updated: 23.06.2006