History of the euro succeeding the EMCF, under Maastricht. It was created as the forerunner to the European Central Bank. It met for the first time on 12 January under its first president, Alexandre Lamfalussy. After much disagreement, in December 1995 the name "euro" was adopted for the new currency (replacing the name "Ecu" used for the previous accounting currency), on the suggestion of then-German finance minister Theo Waigel. They also agreed on the date 1 January 1999 for its launch. On 17 June 1997 the European Council decided in Amsterdam to adopt the Stability and Growth Pact, designed to ensure budgetary discipline after
Language and the euro plural). This pronunciation is rejected by official authorities, such as the Swedish Language Council, and not used in television news. In Sweden there are no widespread slang terms since the euro is a foreign currency. In Finland, the euro is the official currency, and Swedish is an official language alongside Finnish. The same spelling as in Sweden is used (officially Swedish in Finland is spelt as in Sweden). The pronunciation, however, is , which has some similarities to Finnish pronunciation. The abbreviation is like 3,14 €, same as for Finnish. Among Swedish-speaking as well as Finnish-speaking people in Helsinki, a