On New Year’s Day 2002, 12 out of the then 15 EU member states celebrate the inauguration of the Euro. Today the Euro is the second most traded currency globally, after the US Dollar of course.
However, the origins of the Euro date back almost 3 decades, when former Luxembourgish Prime Minister Pierre Werner led a European working group on the so-called ‘Werner Plan.’
The working group’s main objective was to fire up the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), which represented a monumental step in the integration of EU economies.
Former Luxembourgish Prime Minister and former President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has described Werner as a visionary. In 1998, Werner finally witnessed the fruits of his labour as the Euro was officially born.
It seems almost unimaginable today to have lived in a world where roaming charges existed within Europe. But this only became a reality on June 15, 2017 when all roaming charges were abolished within the European Economic Area (EEA), which consists of EU member states including Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Citizens within these states and territories can ‘roam like home’ without worrying about any additional roaming charges.
It took the European Commission almost 13 years to overcome lobbying pressure to keep roaming charges. But it was none other than Luxembourg’s Viviane Reding, who in 2007 launched the fight against roaming charges when she was the European Commissioner for Information, Society and Media.
Once the law came into force, roaming quickly became second nature for millions of citizens. In 2022, the EU regulation was extended for another 10 years.
Watch the report in Luxembourgish
