Council Regulation (EC) No 2169/2005 of 21 December 2005 amending Regulation (EC) No 974/98 on the introduction of the euro

For the purpose of this Regulation: (a) “participating Member States” shall mean the Member States listed in the table in the Annex; (b) “legal instruments” shall mean legislative and statutory provisions, acts of administration, judicial decisions, contracts, unilateral legal acts, payment instruments other than banknotes and coins, and other instruments with legal effect; (c) “conversion rate” shall mean the irrevocably fixed conversion rate adopted for the currency of each participating Member State by the Council in accordance with the first sentence of Article 123(4) of the Treaty or with paragraph 5 of that Article; (d) “euro adoption date” shall mean either the date on which the respective Member State enters the third stage under Article 121(3) of the Treaty or the date on which the abrogation of the respective Member State’s derogation under Article 122(2) of the Treaty enters into force, as the case may be; (e) “cash changeover date” shall mean the date on which euro banknotes and coins acquire the status of legal tender in a given participating Member State; (f) “euro unit” shall mean the currency unit as referred to in the second sentence of Article 2; (g) “national currency units” shall mean the units of the currency of a participating Member State, as those units are defined on the day before the adoption of the euro in that Member State; (h) “transitional period” shall mean a period of three years at the most beginning at 00.00 hours on the euro adoption date and ending at 00.00 hours on the cash changeover date; (i) “phasing-out period” shall mean a period of one year at the most beginning on the euro adoption date, which can only apply to Member States where the euro adoption date and the cash changeover date fall on the same day; (j) “redenominate” shall mean changing the unit in which the amount of outstanding debt is stated from a national currency unit to the euro unit, but which does not have through the act of redenomination the effect of altering any other term of the debt, this being a matter subject to relevant national law; (k) “credit institutions” shall mean credit institutions as defined in Article 1(1) of Directive 2000/12/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 March 2000 relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of credit institutions . For the purpose of this Regulation, the institutions listed in Article 2(3) of that Directive with the exception of post office giro institutions shall not be considered as credit institutions.

The euro adoption date, the cash changeover date, and the phasing-out period, if applicable, for each participating Member State shall be as set out in the Annex.’;

With effect from the respective euro adoption dates, the currency of the participating Member States shall be the euro. The currency unit shall be one euro. One euro shall be divided into one hundred cent.’;

Banknotes and coins denominated in a national currency unit shall retain their status as legal tender within their territorial limits as from the day before the euro adoption date in the participating Member State concerned.’;

The following shall apply in a Member State with a “phasing-out” period. In legal instruments created during the phasing-out period and to be performed in that Member State, reference may continue to be made to the national currency unit. These references shall be read as references to the euro unit according to the respective conversion rates. Without prejudice to Article 15, the acts performed under these legal instruments shall be performed only in the euro unit. The rounding rules laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1103/97 shall apply. The Member State concerned shall limit the application of the first subparagraph to certain types of legal instrument, or to legal instruments adopted in certain fields. The Member State concerned may shorten the period.’;

With effect from the respective cash changeover dates, the ECB and the central banks of the participating Member States shall put into circulation banknotes denominated in euro in the participating Member States. Without prejudice to Article 15, these banknotes denominated in euro shall be the only banknotes which have the status of legal tender in participating Member States.

With effect from the respective cash changeover date, the participating Member States shall issue coins denominated in euro or in cent and complying with the denominations and technical specifications which the Council may lay down in accordance with the second sentence of Article 106(2) of the Treaty. Without prejudice to Article 15 and to the provisions of any agreement under Article 111(3) of the Treaty concerning monetary matters, those coins shall be the only coins which have the status of legal tender in participating Member States. Except for the issuing authority and for those persons specifically designated by the national legislation of the issuing Member State, no party shall be obliged to accept more than 50 coins in any single payment.’;

Articles 10, 11, 14, 15 and 16 shall apply with effect from the respective cash changeover date in each participating Member State.

Where, in legal instruments existing on the day before the cash changeover date, reference is made to the national currency units, these references shall be read as references to the euro unit according to the respective conversion rates. The rounding rules laid down in Regulation (EC) No 1103/97 shall apply.’;

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.