Simon Hunter
THE DAYS OF sorting through near-useless one- and two-euro-cent coins among your change could soon be over in Spain and the rest of the eurozone, as the European Commission comes ever closer to scrapping them.
The European Commissioner for Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, has said that possible changes include all kinds of options, including eliminating them altogether and introducing rounding-up rules across the EU.
His comments were reported by Spanish online daily The Objective, which also included the conclusion by the EC that the production of the lowest-denomination coins ‘clearly generates losses for the eurozone’.
The EC carried out a public survey, the results of which were published in May 2021 and showed that 70% of respondents were in favour of the abolition of the coins and the introduction of uniform rounding-up rules.
The coins could soon see the same fate as €500 notes, the minting of which was suspended in 2019 given that they were of little use for the general public and were instead used for illegal purposes such as drug trafficking and money laundering. The notes still remain legal tender for now.
Read more:
- Spaniards hoard €1.6billion of now worthless pesetas after missing deadline to exchange
- Hundreds queue at banks across Spain in last chance to cash in old pesetas
- Brit family arrested after funding Spain holiday through ‘high quality’ fake cash spree
