Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, 500 days from now euro banknotes and coins will come into circulation. This will be the final stage of the first currency changeover on this scale in the history of our continent. EMU citizens, every citizen of the Member States of the European Union and of the applicant countries and beyond will be indirectly or directly affected. Every single consumer, including both our own citizens and tourists visiting Europe, and the whole world economy will have to learn to recognise the new money, to become familiar with prices and values in euros and to handle the new money. Both large and small companies will have to adapt and change over their accounts and computer systems to the new currency, which will involve substantial preparatory work. We have talked a lot about the advantages of the euro and of economic and monetary union. But there still remains a very great deal to be done. According to opinion polls, not enough companies or private individuals are using the euro, and awareness of it is still too low. 30% of companies do not yet see any need to make preparations well in advance and in some cases even think that they do not need to complete the changeover until 2002. Most members of the public do not have a euro account and rarely carry out financial transactions in euros. There is an enormous need for information and awareness-raising measures going beyond merely technical information on the changeover. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs has not simply commented on the Commission report – we welcome the priorities and measures put forward in it. We have attempted to put the report in concrete terms, to strengthen in it, and, where we thought it was necessary, to supplement it. Considering that around EUR 80 million will be spent on this information campaign in the three years 1999-2002, plus a further EUR 80 million from the ECB, it is absolutely vital for us to have the closest possible coordination between all the institutions, associations and states affected, for us to identify priorities and to encourage agreement on key messages, for us to monitor the process, and in that case I would suggest using the European Parliament and European Commission interinstitutional working group. It is also important for us to implement the political guidelines, also in the context of contracts with Member States, and for us to demonstrate a high degree of professionalism in doing all this. I would like to use my last one and a half minutes to say something about priorities. Over half of all SMEs do not yet have an action plan for the changeover. SMEs need to tackle their technical changeover as quickly as possible, and in doing so also to give some thought to the strategic consequences of a market notable for price transparency and increased competition. So SMEs are the priority for autumn 2000. Secondly, there is the public at large, which includes all the target groups and more besides. The public needs to be made to feel secure about this. In this area, public administration needs to act as a role model, just as NGOs and foundations need to be involved in the information campaign and act as intermediaries. Thirdly, we have schools, schoolchildren and other young people. We have a very specific proposal, which is not only to change over all school books as soon as possible, but also to organise painting, drawing, essay-writing and public speaking competitions on the subject of ‘Changing to the euro’, which is a defining topic for Europe’s identity. The third area is this: the banks have run world savings week throughout Europe, and in this context we should also introduce ‘euro savings days’, to encourage more people to open a euro savings account before the changeover stage. We need to increase the involvement of elected representatives, by which I mean not just Members of the European Parliament, but also all representatives elected by the public from municipal level to European level. In addition to the need to have sufficient staff in the Commission’s directorates-general to cope with the change, coordination is also a key area if we are to send a clear message to the public through a wide-ranging communications strategy with adequate financial resources and an appropriate time frame. We are therefore proposing that the campaign should be extended to 2002. In that case, the success story of the euro will not come to an end at that point, but, with the support of the public, it will go on to greater things.

Political group: PPE-DE