We were planning a trip to Eastern Europe in October but have decided to postpone until April. Does anyone know when Prague will officially start using the Euro? Thanks

Not any time soon. Maybe 3 years from now. They are joining the EU next year, but the currency will NOT immediately change. I know this for a fact, because I just came back from Prague (where I help run a music festival) and this was one of the issues that came up. So, get some koruna out of an ATM at the airport, if you don't already have some, and enjoy your trip.

When - or if - the Czech Republic meets a series of requirements about its economy and its government budget converging with the Eurozone.

The decision is not the Czech government's: it will be made by the unaccountable bureaucrats at the European Central Bank.

It is however up to the Czech government to decide whether it wants to destroy its economy by following the rules the ECB lays down. Rules which the French, for example, simply refuse to follow. Though in fairness, the French do believe the rules should be changed for everyone.

It's no accident that, since the Euro was introduced the economies of EU countries staying out of the nonsense have significantly outperformed those inside.

flaneeruk, you must be one of these typical Brits who are afraid of anything foreign. The euro has done well in terms of keeping inflation down, and makes international trade much more easy and cheaper within the euro zone. For a traveller, the advantages are obvious within the euro zone, and for me living in the euro zone I can now use my own currency when I travel to Asia or Africa and don't have to change to USD anylonger.
Good luck with your splendid isolation at the other side of the Channel. Hopefully, the majority of the Brits will soon come to their senses and join the euro!

Well, as usual, we're about to see another pissing contest about the Euro and its supposed path of destruction as some folks simply refuse to accept change.

To original question was accurately answered by amp322. ATMs are plentiful in Prague and I suggest you use them to get any cash needed while in Prague.

Flanneruk, at least I am quite happy with euro (I just wish Germany and France would start to follow the rules they themselves made). The constant devalvation?inflation?devalvation-inflation rumba of a small currency stopped, and the interests of my house loan went down more than 50%. Perhaps you are like the Swedish woman who was interviewed in today's newspaper. She said that she will vote NO because at least now she knows how things are, but she cannot know how things would be after euro. Sort of like not getting married because it might not work out. Or not stepping into an airplane because it might fall.

Why is currency something that awakes passionate opinions in some people, beats me.

Unless I am mistaken it is the people who decide if the country switches to the Euro ie Denmark and today Sweden...

Chris.

No, the Czech people will have no say in whether they join the Euro. The Treaty of Accession requires them to. But only when the ECB says they can.

I've yet to meet a "typical Brit who's afraid of anything foreign". A few nanoseconds walking round the UK will make it clear that we are a great deal more open to foreign people, influences and ideas than almost anywhere on the planet, with the possible exception of Los Angeles (the only city in a rich country with a higher proportion of its population born abroad than London). We are, for example, almost the only EU member state prepared to grant the new 10 members the right to work from the day of their accession.

But, like the overwhelming proportion of Brits and Swedes, I note that economic growth stopped in the Eurozone pretty much the day the euro was introduced (it's now down to zero even in France). That unemployment has grown throughout the Eurozone, while it's declined in the UK in the same period. That neither Chirac nor the President of the Commission can find a good word to say about the Euro's insane Stability Pact. But won't do anything about it, because responding to the real world is just not part of how the ECB or the European Commission operate.

Above all, I note that no country in the Eurozone has let its people vote on this insanity. And the EU members which are allowing a referendum can't get it through.

None of which, possibly, matters in the current rich man's club. If British or Swedish growth, after joining the Euro, were to slow for political reasons, many Europeans may think that a minor price to pay for whatever benefits they think comes from it.

But joining the Euro will kill growth in the desperately poor new states. (Why do I say that? Because that's what's happened in Portugal. Dammit, even Ireland now has slower annual growth than Japan!!!) And forcing poverty on Europe's poorest people is, in my view, both immoral and politically insane.

The last thing Europe needs is to exacerbate the rich/poor division it already has. Especially while the ever-so-open-to-foreign-ideas Eurozone insists on depriving the new 10 of the right to work in the ex-growth rich states.