On January 1, 1999, the euro (EUR) was introduced as the account currency, which replaced the European currency par. The European currency was a theoretical basket of currencies rather than a physical currency in itself. Initially, eleven countries of the European Economic and Monetary Union replaced their currency with the euro: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Greece followed in 2001, Slovenia in 2007, Malta and Cyprus in 2008, Slovakia in 2009 and Latvia in 2014.
Since then, several sovereign countries outside the European Union have adopted the euro, including the Principality of Andorra, the Principality of Monaco, the Republic of San Marino and the Vatican. The euro is also used in many regions, departments and sovereign states of eurozone countries such as the Azores, Balearic Islands, Canary Islands, European Island, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Juan de Nova, Madeira Islands, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion, St. -Martin, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, to name just a few. The euro is used as a trade currency in Cuba, North Korea and Syria, and several currencies are linked to it.
In the early 20th century, the United Arab Emirates began using British sovereign gold coins and the Maria Theresa Thaler; other currencies such as the Indian rupee also moved within the country. In 1959, they launched the Gulf Rupee, issued by the Reserve Bank of India, equal in value to the Indian Rupee.
The devaluation of the Indian rupee in 1966 directly affected the value of the Gulf rupee, so the UAE responded by introducing its own currency. They adopted the Saudi Arabian Riyal as a temporary currency and replaced it with the Qatari and Dubai Riyal in the same year. All the emirates - except Abu Dhabi, which used the Bahraini dinar - used the Qatari and Dubai riyals until 1973, when the dirham of the United Arab Emirates was created. In 1978, the dirham established a fixed exchange rate in the Special Drawing Rights of the International Monetary Fund.