The euro and its perception in the German population

The introduction of a single European currency, the euro, is one of the biggest political projects undertaken up to now promoting European unity. However, in some countries - such as Germany - acceptance is still not high, even several years after the currency's introduction. Yet widespread acceptance of the new currency is absolutely necessary for the idea of Europe to succeed, and its failure could exacerbate historic tensions and resentments within Europe.In this study, we concentrate on people's attitudes towards the euro and their changing perceptions from a longitudinal perspective. Since data sources on this topic are rare, we rely on German micro-data from the Socio-Economic Panel Study 1999 to 2002 and focus only on the single country of Germany.Our main findings are the following: first, a large part of the German population was worried about the new currency, both immediately before and after its introduction. Second, people with better access to information were less concerned about the new currency. Third, persons who profit most from the new currency in Germany - EU foreigners - have lower concerns about the euro in general. Fourth, difficulties in handling the new currency increased people's concerns about the euro significantly. Additionally, we argue that the monthly pattern of remaining and becoming concerned in 2002 is traceable back to media reports on price increases. For these reasons, future EMU member states should prepare their populations better for these challenges.