Europeans Fear Currency Changes Won't Make Cents : Unity: The 15-nation European Union is scheduled to adopt one monetary unit by 1999. That's expected to hit the common man pretty hard.

By JEFFREY ULBRICH

Dec. 3, 1995 12 AM PT

ASSOCIATED PRESS

RIXENSART, Belgium — Imagine one day they come along and announce the American dollar no longer exists. Henceforth, you’ll have something called the Universal Money Unit, and it will be worth 3.19 times what the dollar was.

That means the new Buick you are saving up to buy will not cost $19,999, but 6,269 UMUs. The chicken you used to pay 79 cents a pound for at the supermarket will cost you 24-hundredths of an UMU. And the $1.69 six-pack of Coke now looks like a bargain at half an UMU.

Of course, the $566 in your checking account is now 174.42 UMUs and your $34,600 salary will be 10,846 UMUs.

And one thing is certain: If there is any rounding off of prices, it will be up and not down.

That is what’s going to happen for millions of people if the 15-nation European Union forges ahead with plans for a single currency in 1999.

Parisians will lose their beloved French franc, Germans their powerful deutsche mark, Italians their lira.

In return, they’ll get something that may be called a euro; or an ECU; or, as some have suggested, a monnet, after Jean Monnet, who helped found what became the EU. The latter sounds like “money” in English or French anyway. Even less seriously, some have touted the “Jacques dollar,” after former EU President Jacques Delors of France.

Under a plan agreed to in 1991, EU nations are supposed to adopt a common currency by 1999. They will also hand over control of their monetary policy to a European central bank.

Concerned about national independence, Britain and Denmark negotiated the right to opt out of the plan.

For the rest, experts say, when the changeover comes people will lose their terms of reference, their sense of what things are worth, and that inevitably will lead to suspicions that somehow they are being cheated.

Such a fundamental life change is very difficult.

France changed the value of its franc--not the name itself--in 1960, lopping off two zeros. That meant 100 old francs became worth 1 new franc. Thirty-five years later, a lot of folks still haven’t got the hang of it and persist in valuing things in “old francs.”

Imagine the mind-wrenching required to deal with an entirely new currency with an odd new value.

The benefits, as the Eurocrats see it, is a stable monetary system in the EU, a more efficient single trading market, stimulation of growth and employment and elimination of costs connected to currency exchanges.

But what’s in it for the average guy?

“Not a lot,” said Jim Murray, president of the European Consumers Organization. “In that sense, it would be wrong to try to sell it to people saying, ‘Your life is going to be easier in your day-to-day dealings.’ ”

Robert Delfosse, a butcher in this leafy little town south of Brussels, doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.

“Really!” he said when a visitor told him that in just four years he may have two price flags stuck into each chunk of meat in his display case during a changeover period of 12 to 18 months or longer.

“No, I hadn’t thought about that,” he groaned, leaning over the counter and rubbing his chin at the news that he may have to reprogram his cash register, take money in one currency and give change in another, operate two bank accounts.

Delfosse also is going to find himself on the front line of an expected wave of public disgruntlement. As a shopkeeper, he will be the first available target for customers unhappy with the problems that a changeover to a single currency is certain to bring.

“When you put it like that, I guess I better start thinking about some of these things,” he mumbled with furrowed brow, slicing a veal cutlet.

John Hegarty, secretary-general of the Federation of European Chartered Accountants, said the small businessman will be forced to become an advocate, explaining to the public why this is necessary.

“Why does he have to pay for it all and take all the flak? He is not actually doing much cross-border trade. Nobody asked him if he wants to be in a monetary union. The retail industry is quite worried,” Hegarty said.

If the little guy is looking at big problems, banks, insurance companies, industry, even government departments are staring at enormous problems. On the other hand, these are the people who are going to benefit most.

“For the first time, it will also permit a genuine comparison of the prices of goods and services across frontiers,” said an EU study on adopting a single currency.

But the study also concluded that the change is going to take one heck of a sales job.

“There is evidence of doubts among the Union’s citizens in the likelihood of [European monetary union] and lack of information of what the transition to a single currency would involve,” the study said.

According to the EU’s own poll, published in July, only 51% of EU citizens favor the idea of a single currency.

Not only must the EU overcome the practical problems, there is an emotional aspect as well. Currency is not just money. It’s a part of nationhood, of culture, of Europeans themselves.

“I am for the French franc, for the national money. I am not for the European money,” said Louise Berlioz, a retired French businesswoman. “The franc is part of the spirit of the country, its vigor, its weaknesses.”

Although intellectually she accepts the idea that “the single currency is indispensable for a united, strong Europe to face up to the dollar and the yen,” emotionally she rejects it.

“It seems France will lose a bit of its personality,” she said. “The money of a country is something personal. It is more than a tool of a market. I like that which is French, which is well defined.”