‘What am I supposed to do with this?’

WITH the euro finally a reality, opinions on the street yesterday ranged from negative to positive, as shoppers tried to adjust to the new currency.

Riding into Nicosia on a service taxi yesterday, one passenger paid the driver in pounds and duly received his change in euros. Holding the five euro note, he stared at it before saying out loud “what am I supposed to do with this?” In fact, most passengers appeared puzzled with the unfamiliar change they took back from the driver.

On Ledra Street, however, shoppers were more open to accepting the new currency.

“It’s very good, we’ll get used to it,” one woman as she went about her shopping.

“It’s a good currency, but we still haven’t got used to it, it feels like I’m on holiday in Greece, but it’s good we’re all part of a [European] team,” a teenage girl added.

But not everyone was happy: “what can we say?” one woman said, while an elderly man said “we’re being forced to use it”.

But another felt the euro was not news: people had used it abroad for years and it shouldn’t be a difficult change for Cypriots – “people already know it, it’s not new,” he said.

Shop owners were upbeat about the new currency: “We’re completely ready,” a steak house owner told me, but in smaller shops it seems there’s still confusion about the change of prices, and some people have been overcharged due to mistakes in the change of the value of pounds to euros.

Among foreigners living in Cyprus, there were contradicting opinions. “It’s a very, very good change,” one middle-aged Bulgarian woman told me, while another Bulgarian woman in her twenties felt the euro had negatively affected the economies of various countries in the eurozone and would bring down the economy of Cyprus.
As for using the euros two days into the month, few people appeared to have exchanged their currency, and most seem to be trying to hold on to their pounds for as long as possible. “We’re using euros in small amounts as we still have our pounds,” one pensioner said, while a young woman chipped in “we will miss our pounds”.