Faster than expected. I don't have any pesetas by now (only notes and because I haven't gone to the bank to change them). Besides, it has been time since I saw pesetas coins for the last time.

Vending machines already accept euros.

I would say 90-95% of the transactions (at least in Madrid) are done in euros by now.

Regards.

Fernando

Hello.

There's a little problem. It seems that the banks haven't enough amount of coins. I've a couple of friends working in banks and they have problems when they must give coins to the owners of shops, restaurants, etc.

And I've heard it also from a friend of mine that owns a pharmacy and to the owner of the restaurant where I eat everyday.

I'm not ecomomist and so, I don't know if what I'm going to say is real or is just a rumour... I've heard that they are waiting to bring out all the coins to avoid a rise in the inflation. ¿ ?

I read in the newspaper that the Spaniards had sold tons of Euro coins to France since there was a shortage of French cents coins in the country. Now I wonder why?

I cannot understand what difference it makes but the French authorities were quite embarrassed about being compelled to use the Spanish coins instead of "their own". Wasn´t it supposed to be a common currency

Hello.

The notes ¿tickets? of 5, 10, 20 ... Euros are the same in all Europe but, the coins are different. In Spain, the picture that appears in 1 and 2 euros coins is the face of the king Juan Carlos, in the coins of 10, 20 and 50 cents is the face of Cervantes and in the coins of 1, 2 and 5 cents is Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.

Bye.

Yes, that´s how it is, hombre_g, but I think you missed my point(s):

To start with why to sell Spanish coins to France if you don´t have enough of them yourself?

And for the second, now that the currency is common why is it so embarrassing for the French to use the Spanish coins?

Saludos,Tia

Hey Tía!

Our goverment gave our coins to France because our president is a crawler and a (BUTT)licker (MM edited) :p and because our President and his assistant did a bad forecast of the number of coins that we were going to need.

If we had enough coins I wouldn't mind if we give loads of them to France but, now in France they don't have problems with the amount of coins and we have scarcity of coins. I'm sure that the France goverment thinks that we are a bit stupid (or almost that our goverment the P.P. is a bit stupid)

And ... they don't like our coins because they are chauvinist .

All the same, not all the french are chauvinist. I know a lot of them and they don't care if their money has our king face or not. They just spend their coins in Spain filling the gas tank of their cars very cheap and buying wine, beer and whisky in our shops and bars.

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: MadridMan ]

Uhm, I've heard another story about France getting Spanish euros. It seemed that they were not able to produce all the coins and notes they need and they asked the Spanish Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre to produce some for them. Obviously, we only produce euros with the Spanish designs here.

If this is true, then I understand they may feel embarrased to confess they didn't have the capacity to produce so many coins and notes.

As for Spain giving euro coins when we are short of them, I don't think that's true. At the begining, there were complains about a shortage of coins. But the problem wasn't a lack of coins but problems with deliveries. In fact, many shops complaint banks didn't give them euro coins/notes so that they were forced to take credit cards instead of cash and so got charged commission by the banks.

However, it's been more than a month since the euro was introduced and I don't heard of such problems now. Maybe it is happening in some cases but at least not with the hostels and the shops where I buy.