I do not know how far the following is true, but it seems that the euro changeover in Italy is very difficult:
Italians not so keen to say 'arrivederci lira' Italy has come last in the euro-transition class, writes Paddy Agnew in Rome. "Can you not pay me in lira? Are you sure this is the full amount." Eighty-two-year-old Paola had taken precautions. When she went to the Trevignano village post office on Wednesday to collect her pension, she took her son Aldo along with her. Yet, notwithstanding the reassuring filial presence, she was still more than momentarily confused when her monthly pension was handed over in euros. "I'm sorry, Paola, there's nothing I can do about it. We have to pay the pensions in euros. Never mind, dear, you'll get used to it," responded the kindly post office lady, doing her best to adopt a reassuring tone. Such lengthy little exchanges, reassuring as they were for the elderly, nonetheless prompted massive queues in post offices all over Italy on Wednesday as the first full day of euro trading coincided with the all-Italian ritual of pension collection. Up and down the country, from crowded post offices to chaotic ticketing offices at the major train stations and on to 13-km tailbacks at autostrada toll booths, it would seem the euro did not get off to a perfect start. If chaos at post offices was predictable - pension days are normally hectic anyway - the same could not be said of the misfortune that befell train travellers snarled in a classic case of Italian euro-bureaucratic fuddle. In this case, the Finance Ministry, living up to its peerless reputation for world-beating last-minute Byzantine non-thought, made things worse by trying to make them better. Concerned that the simultaneous application of an agreed price rise and the euro would provoke infinite confusion, the ministry postponed the price hike on December 22nd. The problem was that by then, TrenItalia, the state railway operator, had already prepared computer software packages for distribution to the travel agencies, complete with the new prices. The upshot was that most travel agencies were unable to issue train tickets. This forced travellers to buy their tickets at the stations, where lengthy queues were rendered even longer by change being given only in euros. Not that it was much better for those who travelled by autostrada. As Italians struggled to deal with the �6 million worth of change at toll booths, longer-than-usual queues of homeward-bound holidaymakers formed behind them. Nor did Italy perform much better in the retail sector, with the European Commission putting Italy bottom of the class with just 3 per cent of cash operations being transacted in euros. By comparison, the euro zone average was 20 per cent of transactions in euros with both Holland and France registering 50 per cent. Although Wednesday's difficulties were teething problems sure to be resolved by traditional strong pro-European sentiment long before the end of the dual circulation period on February 28th, the same cannot be said of certain attitudes in high government places. Asked what he made of the new single currency, the Devolution Minister, Northern League leader and euro-sceptic Umberto Bossi replied yesterday: "Personally, I don't give a damn about the euro and I don't think it means much to anybody else either." The Defence Minister Antonio Martino, another euro-sceptic, hardly won the Optimist of the New Year award when he said: "I hope I'm wrong but, given the way it was introduced, the euro experience could end in failure." However, Renato Ruggiero, the Europhile Foreign Minister, said yesterday he had been saddened by the negative reaction of fellow ministers to such a momentous event. "While all governments were emphasising the enormous political and ethical significance of the birth of the euro, which for two generations of Europeans means a change in the direction of the continent's history, here everything possible has been done to diminish it," he told the Milan daily Corriere della Sera. "I cannot deny that I am extremely worried." In a front-page editorial, yesterday's Turin daily, La Stampa, commented: "People will say, and they will be right, that we are only at the beginning, that you have to be patient and that everything will sort itself out in the end. In Italy, in any case, everything sorts itself out. However, the poor show remains . . . and it is difficult to banish the unpleasant sensation that, yet again, we are last in the class." �The Irish Times
