French, though almost entirely through economic and monetary means. Although the Euro has officially been introduced, you still can't go to a bank and get actual coins and bills. That is, there isn't actually any Euro coins or paper in circulation, yet. Currently the Euro exists only electronically, through checks, credit cards, or bank transfers. During the second week of January, the Euro began being used in European stock and bond trades and in most business-to-business transactions. To help people become accustomed to the Euro, countries' currencies such as Francs, lire, Deutsche Marks and other currencies will continually be used until January 1, 2002 when the Euro will be introduced in to circulation for consumer use. Until that time, old currencies (legacies) will be fixed with the Euro to prevent any loss of money when converting to the Euro. By June 30, 2002, all legacy currency within the eleven countries will no longer be legal tender and the Euro will be used 100 percent by business's as well as consumers. Before going in to further detail of the Euro and EMU, there are a few facts about "Eurozone" in comparison with other countries and their economic statistics. First of all, the eleven countries of the EMU are about eight percent larger population than the U.S., but their GDP is about 25 percent smaller than the U.S. The countries' economies in the EMU by themselves are considered to be "open," meaning that their external trade is a relatively large share of GDP. But also considered "closed" in a sense because most of their trade is with each other. Excluding trade within the EMU, exports plus imports make up about 25 percent of GDP, compared with less than 20 percent in the U.S. and 18 percent in Japan. Unemployment is higher than the U.S., about 10.5 percent compared to the U.S. at four percent. Government expenditures and receipts are substantially higher relative ...