Economic history of Spain the European community ever since. The country was a leading proponent of the EU single currency, the euro, long before it had been put into circulation. Together with the other founding euro members, it adopted the new physical currency on January 1, 2002. On that date Spain terminated its historic peseta currency and replaced it with the euro, which has become its national currency shared the rest of the Eurozone. This culminated a fast process of economic modernization even though the strength of the euro since its adoption has raised concerns regarding the fact that Spanish exports outside the European
Euro currency in Cuba since 1998, and Syria since 2006. There are also various currencies pegged to the euro (see below). In 2009, Zimbabwe abandoned its local currency and used major currencies instead, including the euro and the United States dollar. Since its introduction, the euro has been the second most widely held international reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. The share of the euro as a reserve currency increased from 18% in 1999 to 27% in 2008. Over this period, the share held in U.S. dollar fell from 71% to 64% and that held in Yen fell from 6.4% to