Estonia Introduces Euro as National Currency Despite Its Weakness

The euro extended its losses today amid the threat of the sovereign-debt crisis, which may slow the economic growth in the Euro-region and further damp the demand for the shared European currency.

Jean- Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank, criticized the European governments in his speech today, saying that “monetary policy responsibility can not substitute for government irresponsibility” and the ECB policy makers “told all governments that they had to correct drastically their fiscal policies”. Despite all the problems of the euro, the number of the EU member states using the single European currency has increased to 17 as the euro has been introduced in Estonia.

EUR/USD traded at 1.2993 as of 14:14 GMT today after it opened at 1.3003 and dropped to the intraday low of 1.2935. EUR/JPY traded near 108.06, following the decline from the opening rate of 108.33 to the intraday low of 107.80.

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