European Currency Unit European Currency Unit The European Currency Unit (₠ or ECU, ) was a basket of the currencies of the European Community member states, used as the unit of account of the European Community before being replaced by the euro on 1 January 1999, at parity. The ECU itself replaced the European Unit of Account, also at parity, on 13 March 1979. The European Exchange Rate Mechanism attempted to minimize fluctuations between member state currencies and the ECU. The ECU was also used in some international financial transactions, where its advantage was that securities denominated in ECUs provided investors with the
Language and the euro the same as the unit of measurement of time or of angle. The term , plural ("evroleptó", plural "evroleptá") is sometimes used when a speaker wants to be completely specific that they are referring to money and not time. Some colloquial names for currency are also in use for the euro. One and two euro coins are respectively called ("frago") and ("difrago") from the French "franc". A 5 euro banknote is also colloquially called ("taliro") from the Germanic root "thaler" via the Italian "talero". A 10 euro banknote is called ("dekariko"), a 20 euro banknote is called ("eikosariko") or ("eikosari"),