European Currency Unit opportunity for foreign diversification without reliance on the currency of a single country. The ECU was conceived on 13 March 1979 as an internal accounting unit. It had the ISO 4217 currency code XEU. On 1 January 1999, the euro (with the code EUR and symbol €) replaced the ECU, at the value €1 = 1 ECU. Unlike the ECU, the euro is a real currency, although not all member states participate (for details on euro membership see Eurozone). Two of the countries in the ECU basket of currencies, UK and Denmark, did not join the eurozone, and a third,
Language and the euro euro-cent is sometimes used in countries (such as Australia, Canada, and the United States) which also have "cent" as a currency subdivision, to distinguish them from their local coin. This usage, though unofficial, is mirrored on the coins themselves, which have the words "EURO" and "CENT" displayed on the common side. In Faroese (and Icelandic) the euro is called evra, a feminine noun derived from the Faroese name of Europe, "Evropa"; this makes Faroese (with Icelandic) one of only two European languages in which the word for the euro is feminine. The plural is formed regularly: evrur. The cents are