Introduction of the euro
EU Council adopts the irrevocable euro conversion rates
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗One euro was fixed at 1,936.27 Italian lire and 0.787564 Irish pounds. The numbers could not be settled until the last official ECU calculation of the year.
Brussels, the last day of 1998
The Council of the European Union met in Brussels on 31 December 1998 and adopted the irrevocable conversion rates between the euro and the national currency units of the eleven initial participating states.
The Treaty required one euro to replace one ECU without changing the ECU's external value, so the rates had to wait for that day's final official ECU exchange rates, calculated while preserving the pre-announced ERM bilateral central rates.
The Council acted on a European Commission proposal after consulting the ECB; president Wim Duisenberg delivered the bank's opinion after its Governing Council approved it by teleconference.
Six significant figures apiece
Council Regulation 2866/98 set each rate to six significant figures: 1.95583 German marks, 6.55957 French francs, 1,936.27 Italian lire, 0.787564 Irish pounds, 2.20371 Dutch guilders, 40.3399 Belgian and Luxembourg francs, 166.386 Spanish pesetas, 13.7603 Austrian schillings, 200.482 Portuguese escudos and 5.94573 Finnish marks.
The regulation entered into force on 1 January 1999, covering almost 300 million people across eleven countries.
For about three and a half days — from the afternoon of 31 December to the opening of markets on 4 January — banks and public authorities converted electronic records, payment systems and large amounts of public debt.
Irrevocable, not a transitional peg
The rates were irrevocable. The eleven national currencies did not continue as independent currencies at adjustable pegs: from 1 January the euro replaced them, and their units became fixed subdivisions of it.
Nothing about the euro's floating market rate against the dollar, yen or pound sterling was decided that night.
No euro cash appeared either. National banknotes and coins kept circulating and remained legal tender in their own territories under the transitional arrangements; euro notes and coins arrived in 2002.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited Date corrected
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Date corrected. The research places this at 1998-12-31.