The euro burst on the scene on January 1, 1999. It was an invisible currency for the first years, with only accounting and electronic payments. In 2002, euro notes and coins replaced many of Europe’s money as the German mark, French franc, Dutch guilder, Spanish peseta, Italian lira, Greek drachma, and other foreign exchange legal tender faded into history. The euro quickly became a reserve currency. In 2020, while the U.S. dollar accounted for around 38.7% of total global payments, the euro had a 36.7% market share.
Since its inception, the euro experienced a 2008 sovereign debt crisis, as the northern countries had to bail out the southern European countries that faced debt defaults. However, the war that started in 2022 in Ukraine on Europe’s border has posed a significant challenge that pushed the euro to a two-decade low in 2023.
