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Wednesday, 9 January 2002  
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No joy without Great Britain

by Karel Roberts Ratnaweera

It was disappointing to read that Great Britain has not gone along with the EURO currency which sparked off jubilatory New Year celebrations when the news was made at midnight on December 31. Europeans danced in the streets, immersed themselves in public fountains and literally bathed in oceans of champagne.

Not since Roman times has Europe had a common currency, reports said, and this would have quickened the blood of those who love history, especially the romantics among them who would have rushed to picture a 'laurel-wreathed' patrician Roman counting the then 'euros' in his coffers.

Described as an unprecedented changeover, the release of something like 300 million Euro coins and notes were in change machines over almost all of Western Europe at midnight on New Year's Eve, sent hundreds of thousands of people dancing first to be the first to get their coins and notes, and then begin a European party across the continent that saw some of the craziest excesses of any New Year party, with perhaps the exception of New Year 2000.

Paris lit up its famous bridge over the river Seine,the Pont Neuf with blue and gold jets,the colours on the former Royal flag of France-- a blue background with golden fleur de lys decorating it.

The traditional celebration of welcoming the New Year in the streets of London carried on despite Great Britain's cool reception. They jumped into the fountain in Trafalgar Square in bitter winter cold, popping champagne corks and to hell with the Euro, we are here to enjoy ourselves and greet 2002 with a bang.

As the Euro went into official circulation that 31st midnight, thousands of Britons might well have been asleep in their beds thumbing their noses in their dreams as the rest of Europe celebrated.

What is disappointing if not worrying about Great Britain's feelings about using the new common currency, is that the common currency is seen as a symbol of a politically,culturally and commercially united Europe which would be a solid deterrent to any attempts to undermine it. Already there are trade tensions between Great Britain and the US which have been on for some time now. Take the dog rumpus of 1991-2. The issue even went to both the Commons and the Lords and it was decided to ban the import of a ferocious breed of American dogs, Pit Bulls and Rotweilers that had killed, maimed or attacked innocent people going about their normal business.

The Brits were ferociously against these dogs being brought in from America, and rightly so,in view of a kind of canine terrorism they spread across the country.

The Euro is also meant to be a symbol of European stability and growth in the future which makes it all the more disappointing--if not disconcerting--that Great Britain is being negative, if one may put it that way,about the currency that will unify Europe of which Great Britain is very much a part.

How far will England be able to jog along on its national pounds and pence without heading for a face-off with the European continent?

In an edition of the International Tribune of December 20 last year there is a quotation from a letter from Napoleon to the King of Naples, May 6, 1807: 'Brother, when you issue coins I would like you to adopt the same valuations as in French money. In this way there will be monetary uniformity all over Europe, which will be a great advantage for trade.'

When the fifteen-member European Union was formed, and the search was on for a European National Anthem, it was finally decided that music written by none other than a German was the unanimous choice. The last movement of Beethoven's great Ninth Symphony, otherwise known as the 'Choral' because it is the only one of his nine symphonies in which voices play a part. And the name of the movement symbolises a united Europe as well as the heart of European culture--'Ode to Joy.' To be sure, Great Britain is an important part of the whole thing. 

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