Malta euro coins minting starts after Ecofin's clearance next week

Maltese euro coins will start being produced in a Paris mint soon after Malta receives the formal go ahead during the Ecofin Council meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.

Though the European Commission has already accepted that Malta is eligible to join the euro next January 1 as the country has already met the required financial and economic criteria, the Council meeting of EU Finance Ministers on July 10 will need to give its thumbs up to the changeover date and confirm the rate of exchange for the decision to be final.

Immediately after, preparations are expected to go into top gear as the business community, the government and consumers prepare for the switch, the Steering Committee for Euro Adoption said yesterday.

Besides ensuring a smooth changeover on New Year's Eve, which is one of the busiest nights of the year, the final preparations include shipping over some 45 containers full of euro coins before the end of the year.

About 200 million euro coins and 80 million euro notes will need to be transported across the island during a short span of time.

Highlighting important issues of security that will involve the vital collaboration of the Armed Forces of Malta and the police, the Central Bank Governor Michael Bonello said the Bank has a responsibility to ensure the integrity of the currency.

Besides upgrading its own internal systems, the Central Bank will be overseeing the cash changeover period that will peak when both the lira and the euro will circulate concurrently in January. The Bank, Mr Bonello said, would be on the lookout for any illicit attempts to introduce counterfeit euro notes at a time when people are still getting used to the new currency.

The Parliamentary Secretary at the Finance Ministry, Tonio Fenech, emphasised the importance of price stability in the changeover. He said a team of 70 euro assistants were educating retailers and business people while also being strong on cases of non-compliance.

"We are also closely monitoring prices in over 200 establishments in Malta and Gozo and we will be soon publishing pricing trends for a number of products so that consumers can start comparing average prices with what they actually pay. We also want to empower consumers to stand up and be counted and speak out in cases where they feel they have been wronged," he said.

Godwin Grima, Principal Permanent Secretary, said a lot of work had been done in the public sector to change certain systems in the run-up to the euro changeover.

Preparations had started in October 2005, when 150 civil servants from different departments started being trained to ensure a smooth changeover across all the systems in the public service. They are, in turn, imparting what they learned to some 2,500 employees.

Dr Grima said a committee set up within the Management Efficiency Unit had overseen over 200 changes that had to be made in preparation for the euro. Putting the euro equivalent of liri and the eventual changeover entailed a lot of work in aspects like taxation, payslips, pensions and social services, besides preparing those parts of the government which handle cash.

Some 490 laws referring to values in the Maltese lira - such as fees, fines and tax ceilings - have to be amended to be euro compliant, Dr Grima said, explaining that this involved smoothening and rounding of values when these are converted into euros.

National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC) chairman Joseph F.X. Zahra announced that in the coming months, new information initiatives will be launched. In September, the NECC will distribute free of charge dual display calculators to assist the public in familiarising with euro values. A "euro curriculum" including plastic euro money kits and wallets to all school children and vulnerable groups would be distributed and the euro website will be relaunched to allow direct internet chat with information officers.

Mr Zahra said temporary euro centres will be set up in towns and villages, manned by trained euro volunteers who will also visit homes to answer queries from the elderly and vulnerable people.