Euro sans frontieres
 

By Jeff Stuart

dotprint.com

2000

The new design for the euro note was unveiled last week, with a record number of safety features.

With E-Day just 123 days away, Wim Duisenberg, president of the European Central Bank, last week presided over the launch of the publicity campaign to reveal the designs of the seven euro banknotes that will be the common currency on January 1 for more than 302 million people in the 12 eurozone countries.

He also revealed the raft of security features designed to protect those banknotes from what is anticipated could be a concerted attack from criminal counterfeiters inside and outside Europe in the first few months.

The campaign is costing E80m, using television and press advertising and a Partnership Programme. In addition, 200 million eight-page booklets, Getting Ready for the Euro, will be delivered to every household in participating countries.

Fifteen high security printing companies, nine banknote paper suppliers, four ink manufacturers, five hologram manufacturers and 11 raw material suppliers are striving to meet the deadline.

By that date, 14.5 billion banknotes have to be printed and available (and 65 billion coins). De La Rue, the largest privately-owned security printer in the world, originally involved in the contract only through its joint venture with Valora-Coregado of Portugal, is now also printing euros at Gateshead.

Notes rejected

Problems were encountered all along the way. In July, 2000 the German company, Giesecke & Devrient (printer of 50% of Deutschmarks) had 325 million E100 notes rejected by the ECB.

The pressure on the State Printing Works especially, which are not accustomed to the round-the-clock working patterns of the private companies, has caused problems with the European print unions. The unions also fear that, after the initial mammoth task has been completed, their jobs may be at stake as the ECB recognises the lower costs and higher efficiency of the private companies.

Lucrative contracts

For the private companies, the euro could provide a rich vein of lucrative contracts. After the initial launch, about 10 billion banknotes a year will be required. The private companies are now deeply involved and will be in an ideal position to take up the large residue of euro production required and at prices which are high by their normal standards.

There are excellent prospects for the UK security printing industry. It surely cannot be long before the ECB introduces a tendering system, allowing for open competition.

So far, the ECB says 11 billion euros have already been produced, and distribution commenced last week.

Police forces are on the alert throughout Europe, as Jurgen Storbeck, head of Europol, has warned of the dangers and stated that "there aren't enough armoured cars in Germany even" to distribute safely in that country. The French are worried that as they currently experience four armed robberies of armoured vehicles a day without the added attraction of the new pan-European currency. The Italian Government, worried about Mafia organised crime, has contracted 50 armoured trains and 200 armoured trucks to distribute 7.2 billion coins.

Security features

The publicity campaign claimed that the euro contained "90 security features". This puzzled sources within the industry ­ there are not 90 security features. It may be that the ECB is including the 40 or more multi-fit films regularly used for a banknote background design, or counting all the guilloche rulings.

What is certain is that the security features include mould-made watermarked cotton-fibre paper with integral security thread; intaglio printing of denomination values and engraved security vignettes (no portraits) to provide tactility; multi-colour litho security backgrounds with complex guilloche rulings with each denomination having a dominant colour; a see-through feature; Optically Variable Ink; on the lower denominations a foil stripe hologram; on the higher denominations a foil patch hologram; micro-lettering; the Japanese Om-rom anti-colour photocopying devices agreed with the colour photocopying machine manufacturers; fluorescent fibres; machine-readable features which will enable the notes to be read by banks; metameric effects; moiré effects; and magnetic threads. The notes also contain features to help the blind and partially-sighted identify by touch.

However, it is the plethora of such features, printed by so many different companies, using different substrates and inks, (even though the ECB implemented a Common Quality Programme in all the printing works involved based on the established ISO-9000 procedures), that raises concerns as to whether the man and woman in the street will not experience even further difficulty in deciding whether a note is genuine.

In the absence of anything familiar, such as a "national" side to the notes which they would recognise ­ as each of the eight new euro coins have—it will be difficult for consumers and bank employees to gauge whether the note is genuine.

It was a strange, but crucial, political decision not to do so which may backfire.

If there is significant counterfeiting of the new banknotes to such an extent that the currency is undermined, there could be another two or three year bonanza period for the security printers as polymer, such as that produced by Securency, or an alternative such as DuraNote, is introduced as a substrate in an effort to thwart the criminals ­ and a complete resupply is ordered by the ECB.