|
Karl Schembri
No Maltese personalities, dead or alive, will feature on Malta’s euro coins to be minted in the next year and half.
The committee in charge of the switch from the lira to the euro known as the National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC) seems keen on avoiding the petty national squabbles about politically divisive public figures when it gets down to deciding which Maltese faces will be circulating on Europe’s new coins.
It is a decision that rests on Malta, which like every other country that has adopted the euro will have the right to mint its own symbols on the coins replacing Maltese currency.
The chairman of NECC, Joseph F. X. Zahra, said he preferred having icons portraying wider themes of Maltese identity on the euro coins.
“We’ll try and keep personalities out of it,” he told journalists in a press briefing Thursday.
His committee is planning to launch an open competition for ideas early next year, for which he hopes there will be popular participation, but enthusiasm for the new currency is in short supply as the Maltese get large media doses of the Italians’ nostalgia for the good old lira and the British disgust for the slayer of the pound.
Even information is scarce: only 33 per cent of Maltese are aware that the country is obliged to dump the lira for the euro as one of its EU membership commitments.
Next month, the committee will present a draft master plan to a wide net of stakeholders in a consultation seminar, outlining the guidelines to be followed by the public and private sector ahead of the changeover to the euro.
It will include practical measures and recommendations for shop owners, companies, bankers and consumers aimed at smoothing the transition and ensuring compliance, although Zahra is quick to point out that his committee is not responsible for any abusive price increases that might occur.
“Inflation is discussed at MCESD and tackled by the Cabinet,” he said. “I’m responsible for the technicalities involved in switching over to the euro and for the education campaign, which is the most important part of my job.”
But consumers do need to be protected and Zahra says government’s regulatory institutions such as the consumers’ division together with a newly formed pricing task force, will be working closely with his committee in ensuring a fair transition.
To this end, shops will be required to show prices in lira and euros simultaneously, as well as the exchange rate used printed on receipts, from around seven months before the adoption of the euro on 1 January 2008.
Government is considering giving between two to three weeks’ phasing out period then, in which people will still be able to pay in lira but get change in euros.
“You don’t want to have a very long phasing-out period because psychologically the shift will take too long to happen,” Zahra said.
It will also be the last chance for all those hoarding cash in the basement to come up with ideas of exchanging their money while remaining underground in the vaults of the black economy.
kschembri@mediatoday.com.mt
|
