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22 J. Consumer Pol'y 1 (1999)

handle is hein.journals/jrncpy22 and id is 1 raw text is: Thierry Vissol Introduction The technical work on the euro was started in various quarters, and obviously in the European Commission, as soon as the Treaty on European Union was signed in 1992, and was further developed fol- lowing its ratification. The task initially was to ensure that things would run smoothly, and it was not until this essential preliminary work had been completed that a practical scenario for the changeover could be envisaged and the general public and consumers included in these discussions. While these two groups of people did not take a large part in this work, several representatives of the European consumers' associations were involved in preparing the scenario adopted by the Madrid Council in December 1995. In 1996, the Commission set up a Euro Working Group through its Consumer Committee, which brings together all the families of consumers' associations and is responsible for providing the Commission with reasoned opinions on consumer policies and measures. This Group also included representatives of the European associations of blind and partially sighted people, the elderly and the very poor. In 1997, they were joined by a team of psychologists, sociolo- gists and experts in people's attitudes to money, of various nationalities. Their task, in cooperation with the Euro Group of the Consumer Committee, was to take a closer look at all the psycho- sociological issues related to the currency and, wherever possible, to draw practical conclusions about the measures to be taken in order to facilitate the changeover to the euro for the various population groups. As soon as it was decided to work with the representatives of con- sumers and of the various population groups, the task had to be organised in such a way as to answer three questions: 1. What is the changeover to the euro? 2. What is a currency? 3. What is a consumer? V Journal of Consumer Policy 22: 1-6, 1999. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.