Interest and Exchange rates
Equivalent bilateral rates
1. Council Regulation (EC) no 1103/97 of June 17th 1997 on certain provisions relating to the introduction of the euro (OJEC, 19.6.97), establishes in Article 4 (4): "Monetary amounts to be converted from one national currency unit into another shall first be converted into a monetary amount expressed in the euro unit, which amount may be rounded to not less than three decimals and shall then be converted into the other national currency unit. No alternative method of calculation may be used unless it produces the same results".
For the purposes of information, the above rule has been used to obtain the equivalent amount in Spanish pesetas of the currency units of the other Member States. The following equivalent bilateral rates are obtained by dividing the irrevocable conversion rate for the euro vis-à-vis the Spanish peseta by the irrevocable conversion rate for the euro vis-à-vis the other currency and rounding to 4 decimals.
| Since 1.1.1999 | |
|---|---|
| BELGIUM (BEF) | 412,4601 pesetas per 100 Belgian francs |
| GERMANY (DEM) | 85,0718 pesetas per Deutsche mark |
| FRANCE (FRF) | 25,3654 pesetas per French franc |
| IRELAND (IEP) | 211,2666 pesetas per Irish pound |
| ITALY (ITL) | 8,5931 pesetas per 100 Italian lira |
| LUXEMBOURG (LUF) | 412,4601 pesetas per 100 Luxembourg francs |
| NETHERLANDS (NLG) | 75,5027 pesetas per Dutch guilder |
| AUSTRIA (ATS) | 12,0917 pesetas per Austrian schilling |
| PORTUGAL (PTE) | 82,9930 pesetas per 100 Portuguese escudos |
| FINLAND (FIM) | 27,9841 pesetas per Finnish markka |
| Since 1.1.2001 | |
| GREECE (GRD) | 48,8293 pesetas per 100 dracmas griegas |
These bilateral rates must not be used for calculations in real transactions, unless they produce the same result as using the legal procedure outlined above. 2. Example. If 4,000 Deutsche marks (DEM) are converted into Spanish pesetas (ESP) using the established legal procedure (using 4 decimals in the intermediate amount in euros), we obtain the following:
4,000 DEM / 1.95583 (irrevocable DEM conversion rate) = 2,045.1675 EUR.
and converting the euros (EUR) obtained into Spanish pesetas
2,045.1675 EUR x 166.386 (irrevocable ESP conversion rate) = 340,287 ESP
In this case (and in general when the amounts are small and 4 decimals are used in the intermediate amount), the result is the same as if the equivalent bilateral Deutsche mark/Spanish pesetas rate in the table above is used. Specifically:
4,000 DEM x 85.0718 (equivalent bilateral DEM rate) = 340,287 ESP
But, in other cases, and especially for large amounts, the result may not be the same.
For example, if 4,000,000 Deutsche marks are converted into Spanish pesetas, the above calculations produce the following results:
4,000,000 DEM /1.95583 (irrevocable DEM conversion rate) = 2,045,167.5248 EUR.
2,045,167.5248 x 166.386 (irrevocable ESP conversion rate) = 340,287,243 ESP.
Had the equivalent bilateral Deutsche mark rate been applied instead, the following result would have been obtained.
4,000,000 DEM x 85,0718 (equivalent bilateral DEM rate) = 340,287,200 ESP.
As can be seen, there is a difference of 43 Spanish pesetas between the two calculations.