Euro turns 25: How has the currency changed the lives of millions?

Twenty five years ago on January 1, the lives of hundreds of millions of Europeans changed.

Euro banknotes and coins became legal tender across many parts of the European Union. The relatively young currency was then adopted by 11 of the 15 EU member states.‌

Today the euro is the official currency of about 340 million Europeans, including millions of Greeks, for many of whom it's the only currency they have ever used.

'The euro is part of my life'

"For me, it's something familiar, it's the only currency I know in Greece and it's something positive," a local resident told CGTN. "I never used the drachma (Greece's previous currency) because I wasn't born when it was introduced. The euro is part of my life and it's something familiar, something I'm used to and I feel it also works for our market," she added. 

‌In Greece, the economy has been relatively stable over the past few years, but it hasn't always been this way. 

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‌The first euro banknotes started to circulate in 2001, and it was then that the country officially left behind the drachma. 

After years of lowering budget deficits and double-digit inflation, Greece met the eurozone criteria. But there was a catch. It exchanged its credibility in international markets to allow the country to borrow at a lower rate, and that's when the problems started.

‌The government over-borrowed and couldn't pay back, triggering creditors to look closely at the country's balance sheets.

The government eventually crashed, shutting out Greece from markets and forcing it to borrow from EU members, but under the condition of cutting public spending.

'The euro made us poorer'

‌It led to several protests calling on Greece to default on its loans and for the government to leave the euro - a feeling that still persists.

‌"Life was better with the drachma. The euro has lost its value - actually it never had value for the average person," one local resident told CGTN. "We had a better life without the euro, with the drachma we bought more things and the quality of life was way better. The euro made us poorer."

‌Greece now has a relatively stable government and economy after years of recession, financial suffering and austerity measures. Though times were tough for most, they continued to back their EU membership and the euro.

‌Although high inflation and costs are bringing back the euro-or-drachma dilemma, being part of the EU is a matter of pride for the Greeks.

"What we find is that across Europe, including in Greece, the support for the euro is at the highest it's been on record," said Vicky Pryce, Chief Economic Adviser at the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Pryce acknowledged that during the eurozone crisis, there were "huge question marks about whether various countries would be able to carry on being part of the euro and also the future of the euro itself.

"But it has expanded from 11 members to now 20. It now accounts for a very large part of Europe – we're talking about 340, 350 million people," added the economist. "A very substantial part of international trade is now denominated in the euro, about 20 percent. So it's a second reserve currency after the U.S. dollar."

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