Euro

# Euro

## Abstract

The euro (symbol: €; currency code: EUR) is the official currency of 20 of the 27 member states of the European Union. This group of states is officially known as the euro area or, more commonly, the eurozone. The euro is divided into 100 euro cents.

The currency is also used officially by the institutions of the European Union, by four European microstates that are not EU members, the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, as well as unilaterally by Montenegro and Kosovo. Outside Europe, a number of special territories of EU members also use the euro as their currency. Additionally, over 200 million people worldwide use currencies pegged to the euro.

The euro is the second-largest reserve currency as well as the second-most traded currency in the world after the United States dollar. As of December 2019, with more than €1.3 trillion in circulation, the euro has one of the highest combined values of banknotes and coins in circulation in the world.

The name euro was officially adopted on 16 December 1995 in Madrid. The euro was introduced to world financial markets as an accounting currency on 1 January 1999, replacing the former European Currency Unit (ECU) at a ratio of 1:1 (US$1.1743 at the time). Physical euro coins and banknotes entered into circulation on 1 January 2002, making it the day-to-day operating currency of its original members, and by March 2002 it had completely replaced the former currencies.

Between December 1999 and December 2002, the euro traded below the US dollar, but has since traded near parity with or above the US dollar, peaking at US$1.60 on 18 July 2008 and since then returning near to its original issue rate. On 13 July 2022, the two currencies hit parity for the first time in nearly two decades due in part to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Then, in September 2022, the US dollar again had a face value higher than the Euro, at around US dollar 0.95 per euro.

## Characteristics

### Administration

The euro is managed and administered by the European Central Bank (ECB, Frankfurt am Main) and the Eurosystem, composed of the central banks of the eurozone countries. As an independent central bank, the ECB has sole authority to set monetary policy. The Eurosystem participates in the printing, minting and distribution of euro banknotes and coins in all member states, and the operation of the eurozone payment systems.

The 1992 Maastricht Treaty obliges most EU member states to adopt the euro upon meeting certain monetary and budgetary convergence criteria, although not all participating states have done so. Denmark has negotiated exemptions, while Sweden (which joined the EU in 1995, after the Maastricht Treaty was signed) turned down the euro in a 2003 non-binding referendum, and has circumvented the obligation to adopt the euro by not meeting the monetary and budgetary requirements. All nations that have joined the EU since 1993 have pledged to adopt the euro in due course. The Maastricht Treaty was amended by the 2001 Treaty of Nice, which closed the gaps and loopholes in the Maastricht and Rome Treaties.

## Countries that use the euro

### Eurozone members

The 20 participating members are

- Austria

- Belgium

- Croatia

- Cyprus

- Estonia

- Finland

- France

- Germany

- Greece

- Ireland

- Italy

- Latvia

- Lithuania

- Luxembourg

- Malta

- Netherlands

- Portugal

- Slovakia

- Slovenia

- Spain

### Special territories of members of the European Economic Area

EU Outermost Regions:

- France French Guiana Guadeloupe Martinique Saint Martin Mayotte Réunion

- French Guiana

- Guadeloupe

- Martinique

- Saint Martin

- Mayotte

- Réunion

- Portugal Azores Madeira

- Azores

- Madeira

- Spain Canary Islands

- Canary Islands

Overseas Territories:

- France French Southern and Antarctic Lands Saint Barthélemy Saint Pierre and Miquelon

- French Southern and Antarctic Lands

- Saint Barthélemy

- Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Special Autonomous Territories:

- Finland Åland

- Åland

- Greece Mount Athos

- Mount Athos

- Spain Ceuta Melilla

- Ceuta

- Melilla

### Other users

Microstates with a monetary agreement:

- Andorra

- Monaco

- San Marino

- Vatican City

British Overseas Territory:

- Akrotiri and Dhekelia

Unilateral adopters:

- Kosovo

- Montenegro

## EU members not using the euro

### Obliged to adopt the euro

The following EU member states committed themselves in their respective Treaty of Accession to adopt the euro. However they do not have a deadline to do so and can delay the process by deliberately not complying with the convergence criteria (such as by not meeting the convergence criteria to join ERM II). Bulgaria and Romania are actively working to adopt the euro, while the remaining states do not have a migration plan in progress.

- Bulgaria: The Bulgarian government aims to replace the Bulgarian lev with the euro by 2026. In November 2023, Bulgarian euro coin design has been revealed and approved by the Bulgarian National Bank.

- Czech Republic

- Hungary

- Poland

- Romania: Romania’s government is looking to adopt the euro by 2029.

- Sweden

### Opt-out

- Denmark The government of Denmark negotiated an opt-out to retain its currency.

## Coins and banknotes

### Coins

The euro is divided into 100 cents (also referred to as euro cents, especially when distinguishing them from other currencies, and referred to as such on the common side of all cent coins). In Community legislative acts the plural forms of euro and cent are spelled without the s, notwithstanding normal English usage. Otherwise, normal English plurals are used, with many local variations such as centime in France.

All circulating coins have a common side showing the denomination or value, and a map in the background. Due to the linguistic plurality in the European Union, the Latin alphabet version of euro is used (as opposed to the less common Greek or Cyrillic) and Arabic numerals (other text is used on national sides in national languages, but other text on the common side is avoided). For the denominations except the 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, the map only showed the 15 member states of the union as of 2002. Beginning in 2007 or 2008 (depending on the country), the old map was replaced by a map of Europe also showing countries outside the EU. The 1-, 2- and 5-cent coins, however, keep their old design, showing a geographical map of Europe with the EU member states as of 2002, raised somewhat above the rest of the map. All common sides were designed by Luc Luycx. The coins also have a national side showing an image specifically chosen by the country that issued the coin. Euro coins from any member state may be freely used in any nation that has adopted the euro.

The coins are issued in denominations of €2, €1, 50c, 20c, 10c, 5c, 2c, and 1c. To avoid the use of the two smallest coins, some cash transactions are rounded to the nearest five cents in the Netherlands and Ireland (by voluntary agreement) and in Finland and Italy (by law). This practice is discouraged by the commission, as is the practice of certain shops of refusing to accept high-value euro notes.

Commemorative coins with €2 face value have been issued with changes to the design of the national side of the coin. These include both commonly issued coins, such as the €2 commemorative coin for the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, and nationally issued coins, such as the coin to commemorate the 2004 Summer Olympics issued by Greece. These coins are legal tender throughout the eurozone. Collector coins with various other denominations have been issued as well, but these are not intended for general circulation, and they are legal tender only in the member state that issued them.

#### Coin minting

A number of institutions are authorised to mint euro coins:

- Bayerisches Hauptmünzamt (Mint mark: D)

- Currency Centre

- Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre-Real Casa de la Moneda

- Hamburgische Münze (J)

- Hrvatska kovnica novca

- Ίδρυμα Εκτύπωσης Τραπεζογραμματίων και Αξιών

- Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda

- Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato

- Koninklijke Munt van België/Monnaie Royale de Belgique

- Koninklijke Nederlandse Munt

- Lietuvos monetų kalykla

- Mincovňa Kremnica

- Monnaie de Paris

- Münze Österreich

- Suomen Rahapaja/Myntverket i Finland

- Staatliche Münze Berlin (A)

- Staatliche Münzen Baden-Württemberg (F): Stuttgart, (G): Karlsruhe

### Banknotes

The design for the euro banknotes has common designs on both sides. The design was created by the Austrian designer Robert Kalina. Notes are issued in €500, €200, €100, €50, €20, €10, and €5. Each banknote has its own colour and is dedicated to an artistic period of European architecture. The front of the note features windows or gateways while the back has bridges, symbolising links between states in the union and with the future. While the designs are supposed to be devoid of any identifiable characteristics, the initial designs by Robert Kalina were of specific bridges, including the Rialto and the Pont de Neuilly, and were subsequently rendered more generic; the final designs still bear very close similarities to their specific prototypes; thus they are not truly generic. The monuments looked similar enough to different national monuments to please everyone.

The Europa series, or second series, consists of six denominations and no longer includes the €500 with issuance discontinued as of 27 April 2019. However, both the first and the second series of euro banknotes, including the €500, remain legal tender throughout the euro area.

In December 2021, the ECB announced its plans to redesign euro banknotes by 2024. A theme advisory group, made up of one member from each euro area country, was selected to submit theme proposals to the ECB. The proposals will be voted on by the public; a design competition will also be held.

#### Issuing modalities for banknotes

Since 1 January 2002, the national central banks (NCBs) and the ECB have issued euro banknotes on a joint basis. Eurosystem NCBs are required to accept euro banknotes put into circulation by other Eurosystem members and these banknotes are not repatriated. The ECB issues 8% of the total value of banknotes issued by the Eurosystem. In practice, the ECB's banknotes are put into circulation by the NCBs, thereby incurring matching liabilities vis-à-vis the ECB. These liabilities carry interest at the main refinancing rate of the ECB. The other 92% of euro banknotes are issued by the NCBs in proportion to their respective shares of the ECB capital key, calculated using national share of European Union (EU) population and national share of EU GDP, equally weighted.

#### Banknote printing

Member states are authorised to print or to commission bank note printing. As of November 2022, these are the printers:

- Istituto Poligrafico e Zecca dello Stato

- Banco de Portugal

- Bank of Greece

- Banque de France

- Bundesdruckerei

- Central Bank of Ireland

- De La Rue

- Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre

- François-Charles Oberthur

- Giesecke & Devrient

- Royal Joh. Enschedé

- National Bank of Belgium

- Oesterreichische Nationalbank

- Setec Oy

### Payments clearing, electronic funds transfer

Capital within the EU may be transferred in any amount from one state to another. All intra-Union transfers in euro are treated as domestic transactions and bear the corresponding domestic transfer costs. This includes all member states of the EU, even those outside the eurozone providing the transactions are carried out in euro. Credit/debit card charging and ATM withdrawals within the eurozone are also treated as domestic transactions; however paper-based payment orders, like cheques, have not been standardised so these are still domestic-based. The ECB has also set up a clearing system, TARGET, for large euro transactions.

## History

### Introduction

The euro was established by the provisions in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty. To participate in the currency, member states are meant to meet strict criteria, such as a budget deficit of less than 3% of their GDP, a debt ratio of less than 60% of GDP (both of which were ultimately widely flouted after introduction), low inflation, and interest rates close to the EU average. In the Maastricht Treaty, the United Kingdom and Denmark were granted exemptions per their request from moving to the stage of monetary union which resulted in the introduction of the euro (see also United Kingdom and the euro).

The name "euro" was officially adopted in Madrid on 16 December 1995. Belgian Esperantist Germain Pirlot, a former teacher of French and history, is credited with naming the new currency by sending a letter to then President of the European Commission, Jacques Santer, suggesting the name "euro" on 4 August 1995.

Due to differences in national conventions for rounding and significant digits, all conversion between the national currencies had to be carried out using the process of triangulation via the euro. The definitive values of one euro in terms of the exchange rates at which the currency entered the euro are shown in the table.

The rates were determined by the Council of the European Union, based on a recommendation from the European Commission based on the market rates on 31 December 1998. They were set so that one European Currency Unit (ECU) would equal one euro. The European Currency Unit was an accounting unit used by the EU, based on the currencies of the member states; it was not a currency in its own right. They could not be set earlier, because the ECU depended on the closing exchange rate of the non-euro currencies (principally pound sterling) that day.

The procedure used to fix the conversion rate between the Greek drachma and the euro was different since the euro by then was already two years old. While the conversion rates for the initial eleven currencies were determined only hours before the euro was introduced, the conversion rate for the Greek drachma was fixed several months beforehand.

The currency was introduced in non-physical form (traveller's cheques, electronic transfers, banking, etc.) at midnight on 1 January 1999, when the national currencies of participating countries (the eurozone) ceased to exist independently. Their exchange rates were locked at fixed rates against each other. The euro thus became the successor to the European Currency Unit (ECU). The notes and coins for the old currencies, however, continued to be used as legal tender until new euro notes and coins were introduced on 1 January 2002.

The changeover period during which the former currencies' notes and coins were exchanged for those of the euro lasted about two months, until 28 February 2002. The official date on which the national currencies ceased to be legal tender varied from member state to member state. The earliest date was in Germany, where the mark officially ceased to be legal tender on 31 December 2001, though the exchange period lasted for two months more. Even after the old currencies ceased to be legal tender, they continued to be accepted by national central banks for periods ranging from several years to indefinitely (the latter for Austria, Germany, Ireland, Estonia and Latvia in banknotes and coins, and for Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Slovakia in banknotes only). The earliest coins to become non-convertible were the Portuguese escudos, which ceased to have monetary value after 31 December 2002, although banknotes remained exchangeable until 2022.

### Currency sign

A special euro currency sign (€) was designed after a public survey had narrowed ten of the original thirty proposals down to two. The President of the European Commission at the time (Jacques Santer) and the European Commissioner with responsibility for the euro (Yves-Thibault de Silguy) then chose the winning design.

Regarding the symbol, the European Commission stated on behalf of the European Union:

The symbol € is based on the Greek letter epsilon (Є), with the first letter in the word "Europe" and with 2 parallel lines signifying stability.

The European Commission also specified a euro logo with exact proportions. Placement of the currency sign relative to the numeric amount varies from state to state, but for texts in English published by EU institutions, the symbol (or the ISO -standard "EUR") should precede the amount.

### Eurozone crisis

Following the U.S. financial crisis in 2008, fears of a sovereign debt crisis developed in 2009 among investors concerning some European states, with the situation becoming particularly tense in early 2010. Greece was most acutely affected, but fellow Eurozone members Cyprus, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, and Spain were also significantly affected. All these countries used EU funds except Italy, which is a major donor to the EFSF. To be included in the eurozone, countries had to fulfil certain convergence criteria, but the meaningfulness of such criteria was diminished by the fact it was not enforced with the same level of strictness among countries.

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2011, "f the is treated as a single entity, its position looks no worse and in some respects, rather better than that of the US or the UK" and the budget deficit for the euro area as a whole is much lower and the euro area's government debt/GDP ratio of 86% in 2010 was about the same level as that of the United States. "Moreover", they write, "private-sector indebtedness across the euro area as a whole is markedly lower than in the highly leveraged Anglo-Saxon economies". The authors conclude that the crisis "is as much political as economic" and the result of the fact that the euro area lacks the support of "institutional paraphernalia (and mutual bonds of solidarity) of a state".

The crisis continued with S&P downgrading the credit rating of nine euro-area countries, including France, then downgrading the entire European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) fund.

A historical parallel – to 1931 when Germany was burdened with debt, unemployment and austerity while France and the United States were relatively strong creditors – gained attention in summer 2012 even as Germany received a debt-rating warning of its own.

## Direct and indirect usage

### Agreed direct usage with minting rights

The euro is the sole currency of 20 EU member states: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain. These countries constitute the " eurozone ", some 347 million people in total as of 2023. According to bilateral agreements with the EU, the euro has also been designated as the sole and official currency in a further four European microstates awarded minting rights (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican City). All but one (Denmark) current, and any potential future EU members, are obliged to adopt the euro when economic conditions permit.

### Agreed direct usage without minting rights

The euro is also the sole currency in three overseas territories of France that are not themselves part of the EU, namely Saint Barthélemy, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, and the French Southern and Antarctic Lands, as well as in the British Overseas Territory of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.

### Unilateral direct usage

The euro has been adopted unilaterally as the sole currency of Montenegro and Kosovo. It has also been used as a foreign trading currency in Cuba since 1998, Syria since 2006, and Venezuela since 2018. In 2009, Zimbabwe abandoned its local currency and introduced major global convertible currencies instead, including the euro and the United States dollar. The direct usage of the euro outside of the official framework of the EU affects nearly 3 million people.

### Currencies pegged to the euro

Outside the eurozone, two EU member states have currencies that are pegged to the euro, which is a precondition to joining the eurozone. The Danish krone and Bulgarian lev are pegged due to their participation in the ERM II.

Additionally, a total of 21 countries and territories that do not belong to the EU have currencies that are directly pegged to the euro including 14 countries in mainland Africa (CFA franc), two African island countries (Comorian franc and Cape Verdean escudo), three French Pacific territories (CFP franc) and two Balkan countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark) and North Macedonia (Macedonian denar). On 1 January 2010, the dobra of São Tomé and Príncipe was officially linked with the euro. Additionally, the Moroccan dirham is tied to a basket of currencies, including the euro and the US dollar, with the euro given the highest weighting.

These countries generally had previously implemented a currency peg to one of the major European currencies (e.g. the French franc, Deutsche Mark or Portuguese escudo), and when these currencies were replaced by the euro their currencies became pegged to the euro. Pegging a country's currency to a major currency is regarded as a safety measure, especially for currencies of areas with weak economies, as the euro is seen as a stable currency, prevents runaway inflation, and encourages foreign investment due to its stability.

In total, as of 2013, 182 million people in Africa use a currency pegged to the euro, 27 million people outside the eurozone in Europe, and another 545,000 people on Pacific islands.

Since 2005, stamps issued by the Sovereign Military Order of Malta have been denominated in euros, although the Order's official currency remains the Maltese scudo. The Maltese scudo itself is pegged to the euro and is only recognised as legal tender within the Order.

The currency of a number of states is pegged to the euro. These states are:

North America

- Haiti (Haitian gourde, HTG)

Europe

- Albania (Albanian lek, ALL)

- Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, BAM)

- Bulgaria (Bulgarian lev, BGN)

- Denmark (Danish krone, DKK)

- North Macedonia (Macedonian denar, MKD)

- Sovereign Military Order of Malta (Maltese scudo)

- Moldova (Moldovan leu, MDL)

- Romania (Romanian leu, RON)

- Serbia (Serbian dinar, RSD)

Oceania

- French Polynesia (CFP franc, XPF)

- New Caledonia (CFP franc)

- Wallis and Futuna (CFP franc)

Africa

- Burundi (Burundi franc, BIF)

- Cape Verde (Cape Verdean escudo, CVE)

- Cameroon (Central African CFA franc, XAF)

- Central African Republic (Central African CFA franc)

- Chad (Central African CFA franc)

- Equatorial Guinea (Central African CFA franc)

- Gabon (Central African CFA franc)

- Congo (Central African CFA franc)

- Comoros (Comorian franc, KMF)

- DR Congo (Congolese franc, CDF)

- Djibouti (Djibouti franc, DJF)

- Eritrea (Eritrean nakfa, ERN)

- Ethiopia (Ethiopian birr, ETB)

- Gambia (Gambian dalasi, GMD)

- Guinea (Guinean franc, GNF)

- Madagascar (Malagasy ariary, MGA)

- Mozambique (Mozambique metical, MZN)

- Rwanda (Rwanda franc, RWF)

- Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (Sahrawi peseta)

- São Tomé and Príncipe (São Tomé and Príncipe dobra, STN)

- Sierra Leone (Sierra Leonean leone, SLE)

- Benin (West African CFA franc, XOF)

- Burkina Faso (West African CFA franc)

- Ivory Coast (West African CFA franc)

- Guinea-Bissau (West African CFA franc)

- Mali (West African CFA franc)

- Niger (West African CFA franc)

- Senegal (West African CFA franc)

- Togo (West African CFA franc)

### Use as reserve currency

Since its introduction in 1999, the euro has been the second most widely held international reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. The share of the euro as a reserve currency increased from 18% in 1999 to 27% in 2008. Over this period, the share held in U.S. dollar fell from 71% to 64% and that held in RMB fell from 6.4% to 3.3%. The euro inherited and built on the status of the Deutsche Mark as the second most important reserve currency. The euro remains underweight as a reserve currency in advanced economies while overweight in emerging and developing economies: according to the International Monetary Fund the total of euro held as a reserve in the world at the end of 2008 was equal to $1.1 trillion or €850 billion, with a share of 22% of all currency reserves in advanced economies, but a total of 31% of all currency reserves in emerging and developing economies.

The possibility of the euro becoming the first international reserve currency has been debated among economists. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gave his opinion in September 2007 that it was "absolutely conceivable that the euro will replace the US dollar as reserve currency, or will be traded as an equally important reserve currency". In contrast to Greenspan's 2007 assessment, the euro's increase in the share of the worldwide currency reserve basket has slowed considerably since 2007 and since the beginning of the worldwide credit crunch related recession and European sovereign-debt crisis.

## Economics

### Optimal currency area

In economics, an optimum currency area, or region (OCA or OCR), is a geographical region in which it would maximise economic efficiency to have the entire region share a single currency. There are two models, both proposed by Robert Mundell: the stationary expectations model and the international risk sharing model. Mundell himself advocates the international risk sharing model and thus concludes in favour of the euro. However, even before the creation of the single currency, there were concerns over diverging economies. Before the late-2000s recession it was considered unlikely that a state would leave the euro or the whole zone would collapse. However the Greek government-debt crisis led to former British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw claiming the eurozone could not last in its current form. Part of the problem seems to be the rules that were created when the euro was set up. John Lanchester, writing for The New Yorker, explains it:

The guiding principle of the currency, which opened for business in 1999, were supposed to be a set of rules to limit a country's annual deficit to three per cent of gross domestic product, and the total accumulated debt to sixty per cent of G.D.P. It was a nice idea, but by 2004 the two biggest economies in the euro zone, Germany and France, had broken the rules for three years in a row.

Increasing business cycle divergence across the Eurozone over the last decades implies a decreasing Optimum Currency Area.

### Transaction costs and risks

The most obvious benefit of adopting a single currency is to remove the cost of exchanging currency, theoretically allowing businesses and individuals to consummate previously unprofitable trades. For consumers, banks in the eurozone must charge the same for intra-member cross-border transactions as purely domestic transactions for electronic payments (e.g., credit cards, debit cards and cash machine withdrawals).

Financial markets on the continent are expected to be far more liquid and flexible than they were in the past. The reduction in cross-border transaction costs will allow larger banking firms to provide a wider array of banking services that can compete across and beyond the eurozone. However, although transaction costs were reduced, some studies have shown that risk aversion has increased during the last 40 years in the Eurozone.

### Price parity

Another effect of the common European currency is that differences in prices—in particular in price levels—should decrease because of the law of one price. Differences in prices can trigger arbitrage, i.e., speculative trade in a commodity across borders purely to exploit the price differential. Therefore, prices on commonly traded goods are likely to converge, causing inflation in some regions and deflation in others during the transition. Some evidence of this has been observed in specific eurozone markets.

### Macroeconomic stability

Before the introduction of the euro, some countries had successfully contained inflation, which was then seen as a major economic problem, by establishing largely independent central banks. One such bank was the Bundesbank in Germany; the European Central Bank was modelled on the Bundesbank.

The euro has come under criticism due to its regulation, lack of flexibility and rigidity towards sharing member states on issues such as nominal interest rates. Many national and corporate bonds denominated in euro are significantly more liquid and have lower interest rates than was historically the case when denominated in national currencies. While increased liquidity may lower the nominal interest rate on the bond, denominating the bond in a currency with low levels of inflation arguably plays a much larger role. A credible commitment to low levels of inflation and a stable debt reduces the risk that the value of the debt will be eroded by higher levels of inflation or default in the future, allowing debt to be issued at a lower nominal interest rate.

There is also a cost in structurally keeping inflation lower than in the United States, United Kingdom, and China. The result is that seen from those countries, the euro has become expensive, making European products increasingly expensive for its largest importers; hence export from the eurozone becomes more difficult.

In general, those in Europe who own large amounts of euro are served by high stability and low inflation.

A monetary union means states in that union lose the main mechanism of recovery of their international competitiveness by weakening (depreciating) their currency. When wages become too high compared to productivity in the exports sector, then these exports become more expensive and they are crowded out from the market within a country and abroad. This drives the fall of employment and output in the exports sector and fall of trade and current account balances. Fall of output and employment in the tradable goods sector may be offset by the growth of non-exports sectors, especially in construction and services. Increased purchases abroad and negative current account balances can be financed without a problem as long as credit is cheap. The need to finance trade deficit weakens currency, making exports automatically more attractive in a country and abroad. A state in a monetary union cannot use weakening of currency to recover its international competitiveness. To achieve this a state has to reduce prices, including wages (deflation). This could result in high unemployment and lower incomes as it was during the European sovereign-debt crisis.

#### Trade

The euro increased price transparency and stimulated cross-border trade. A 2009 consensus from the studies of the introduction of the euro concluded that it has increased trade within the eurozone by 5% to 10%, and a meta-analysis of all available studies on the effect of introduction of the euro on increased trade suggests that the prevalence of positive estimates is caused by publication bias and that the underlying effect may be negligible. Although a more recent meta-analysis shows that publication bias decreases over time and that there are positive trade effects from the introduction of the euro, as long as results from before 2010 are taken into account. This may be because of the inclusion of the Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and ongoing integration within the EU. Furthermore, older studies based on certain methods of analysis of main trends reflecting general cohesion policies in Europe that started before, and continue after implementing the common currency find no effect on trade. These results suggest that other policies aimed at European integration might be the source of observed increase in trade. According to Barry Eichengreen, studies disagree on the magnitude of the effect of the euro on trade, but they agree that it did have an effect.

#### Investment

Physical investment seems to have increased by 5% in the eurozone due to the introduction. Regarding foreign direct investment, a study found that the intra-eurozone FDI stocks have increased by about 20% during the first four years of the EMU. Concerning the effect on corporate investment, there is evidence that the introduction of the euro has resulted in an increase in investment rates and that it has made it easier for firms to access financing in Europe. The euro has most specifically stimulated investment in companies that come from countries that previously had weak currencies. A study found that the introduction of the euro accounts for 22% of the investment rate after 1998 in countries that previously had a weak currency.

#### Inflation

The introduction of the euro has led to extensive discussion about its possible effect on inflation. In the short term, there was a widespread impression in the population of the eurozone that the introduction of the euro had led to an increase in prices, but this impression was not confirmed by general indices of inflation and other studies. A study of this paradox found that this was due to an asymmetric effect of the introduction of the euro on prices: while it had no effect on most goods, it had an effect on cheap goods which have seen their price round up after the introduction of the euro. The study found that consumers based their beliefs on inflation of those cheap goods which are frequently purchased. It has also been suggested that the jump in small prices may be because prior to the introduction, retailers made fewer upward adjustments and waited for the introduction of the euro to do so. Based on the introduction of the euro as the official currency in Croatia in 2023, the ECB argues that inflation due to a change of currency is a one-time effect of limited impact.

#### Exchange rate risk

One of the advantages of the adoption of a common currency is the reduction of the risk associated with changes in currency exchange rates. It has been found that the introduction of the euro created "significant reductions in market risk exposures for nonfinancial firms both in and outside Europe". These reductions in market risk "were concentrated in firms domiciled in the eurozone and in non-euro firms with a high fraction of foreign sales or assets in Europe".

#### Financial integration

The introduction of the euro increased European financial integration, which helped stimulate growth of a European securities market (bond markets are characterized by economies of scale dynamics). According to a study on this question, it has "significantly reshaped the European financial system, especially with respect to the securities markets However, the real and policy barriers to integration in the retail and corporate banking sectors remain significant, even if the wholesale end of banking has been largely integrated." Specifically, the euro has significantly decreased the cost of trade in bonds, equity, and banking assets within the eurozone. On a global level, there is evidence that the introduction of the euro has led to an integration in terms of investment in bond portfolios, with eurozone countries lending and borrowing more between each other than with other countries. Financial integration made it cheaper for European companies to borrow. Banks, firms and households could also invest more easily outside of their own country, thus creating greater international risk-sharing.

#### Effect on interest rates

As of January 2014, and since the introduction of the euro, interest rates of most member countries (particularly those with a weak currency) have decreased. Some of these countries had the most serious sovereign financing problems.

The effect of declining interest rates, combined with excess liquidity continually provided by the ECB, made it easier for banks within the countries in which interest rates fell the most, and their linked sovereigns, to borrow significant amounts (above the 3% of GDP budget deficit imposed on the eurozone initially) and significantly inflate their public and private debt levels. Following the financial crisis of 2007–2008, governments in these countries found it necessary to bail out or nationalise their privately held banks to prevent systemic failure of the banking system when underlying hard or financial asset values were found to be grossly inflated and sometimes so nearly worthless there was no liquid market for them. This further increased the already high levels of public debt to a level the markets began to consider unsustainable, via increasing government bond interest rates, producing the ongoing European sovereign-debt crisis.

#### Price convergence

The evidence on the convergence of prices in the eurozone with the introduction of the euro is mixed. Several studies failed to find any evidence of convergence following the introduction of the euro after a phase of convergence in the early 1990s. Other studies have found evidence of price convergence, in particular for cars. A possible reason for the divergence between the different studies is that the processes of convergence may not have been linear, slowing down substantially between 2000 and 2003, and resurfacing after 2003 as suggested by a recent study (2009).

#### Tourism

A study suggests that the introduction of the euro has had a positive effect on the amount of tourist travel within the EMU, with an increase of 6.5%.

## Exchange rates

### Flexible exchange rates

The ECB targets interest rates rather than exchange rates and in general, does not intervene on the foreign exchange rate markets. This is because of the implications of the Mundell–Fleming model, which implies a central bank cannot (without capital controls) maintain interest rate and exchange rate targets simultaneously, because increasing the money supply results in a depreciation of the currency. In the years following the Single European Act, the EU has liberalised its capital markets and, as the ECB has inflation targeting as its monetary policy, the exchange-rate regime of the euro is floating.

### Against other major currencies

The euro is the second-most widely held reserve currency after the U.S. dollar. After its introduction on 4 January 1999 its exchange rate against the other major currencies fell reaching its lowest exchange rates in 2000 (3 May vs sterling, 25 October vs the U.S. dollar, 26 October vs Japanese yen). Afterwards it regained and its exchange rate reached its historical highest point in 2008 (15 July vs US dollar, 23 July vs Japanese yen, 29 December vs sterling). With the advent of the global financial crisis the euro initially fell, to regain later. Despite pressure due to the European sovereign-debt crisis, the euro remained stable. In November 2011 the euro's exchange rate index – measured against currencies of the bloc's major trading partners – was trading almost two percent higher on the year, approximately at the same level as it was before the crisis began in 2007. In mid July 2022, the euro and the US dollar traded at par for a short period of time during an episode of dollar appreciation. On 11 July 2024, it recorded a new high against the Japanese yen during a long period of depreciation of the latter.

- Current and historical exchange rates against 32 other currencies (European Central Bank): link

## Political considerations

Besides the economic motivations to the introduction of the euro, its creation was also partly justified as a way to foster a closer sense of joint identity between European citizens. Statements about this goal were for instance made by Wim Duisenberg, European Central Bank Governor, in 1998, Laurent Fabius, French Finance Minister, in 2000, and Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, in 2002. However, 15 years after the introduction of the euro, a study found no evidence that it has had any effect on a shared sense of European identity.

## Euro in various official EU languages

The formal titles of the currency are euro for the major unit and cent for the minor (one-hundredth) unit and for official use in most eurozone languages; according to the ECB, all languages should use the same spelling for the nominative singular. This may contradict normal rules for word formation in some languages.

Bulgaria has negotiated an exception; euro in the Bulgarian Cyrillic alphabet is spelled eвро (evro) and not eуро (euro) in all official documents. In the Greek script the term ευρώ (evró) is used; the Greek "cent" coins are denominated in λεπτό/ά (leptó/á). Official practice for English-language EU legislation is to use the words euro and cent as both singular and plural, although the European Commission's Directorate-General for Translation states that the plural forms euros and cents should be used in English. The word 'euro' is pronounced differently according to pronunciation rules in the individual languages applied; in German, in English / ˈ j ʊər oʊ /, in French, etc.

In summary:

For local phonetics, cent, use of plural and amount formatting (€6,00 or 6.00 €), see Language and the euro.


Kyle Kirkwood

# Kyle Kirkwood

## Abstract

Kyle MacLean Kirkwood (born October 19, 1998) is an American auto racing driver. He currently drives the No. 27 for Andretti Autosport in the IndyCar Series.

## Career

### Karting

Born in Jupiter, Kirkwood began karting at a young age, often competing alongside fellow Jupiter native Oliver Askew. Throughout his karting career, he amassed multiple titles, including the AM Engines Formula Tag Junior championship in 2012, the SKUSA SuperNationals XVII - S5 Junior championship in 2013 and back-to-back wins at the Florida Winter Tour in 2015 and 2016.

### Lower formula

In 2015, Kirkwood made his single-seater debut in the F1600 Championship with Chastain Motorsports. There he took victory in the season opener at Road Atlanta and contested a further six rounds to finish sixteenth.

Following his performance in Formula 4 United States, Kirkwood returned to the Formula Ford scene in 2016 to represent Team USA in the Formula Ford Festival and Walter Hayes Trophy event, finishing seventh and fourth overall in both respective events.

In 2016, Kirkwood joined the inaugural Formula 4 United States Championship with Primus Racing, which saw him claim a win at Mid-Ohio and finish third in the standings overall. In September 2016, Kirkwood was awarded with the Team USA scholarship.

After competing with them in pre-season testing at NOLA, Kirkwood returned to the championship the following year, switching to newcomers Cape Motorsports. He achieved nine victories, including back-to-back hat-tricks at Indianapolis and Motorsport Park, wrapping up the title in the Formula One supporting season finale at the Circuit of the Americas. During the season, Kirkwood was once again selected as a candidate for the Team USA scholarship.

### International Formula 3

In August 2018, Kirkwood joined Abel Motorsports to contest the inaugural season of F3 Americas. The season saw Kirkwood claim fifteen of the seventeen race victories on offer and seal his third consecutive championship at NOLA with a round to spare.

The following year, Kirkwood made a one-off appearance with RP Motorsport in the season finale of the Euroformula Open Championship at Monza, which saw him take a best-placed finish of sixth in race two.

### Formula E

In February 2020, Kirkwood was announced to be partaking in the rookie test at Marrakesh with BMW i Andretti Motorsport.

### Road to Indy

In December 2016, Kirkwood partook in the Mazda Road to Indy Shootout, but lost out on the scholarship to Askew.

#### USF2000

In 2017, Kirkwood partook in the Chris Griffis Memorial Test with Swan-RJB Motorsports. In February 2018, he reunited with Cape Motorsports to contest the 2018 championship. In only his rookie season, Kirkwood dominated proceedings, taking twelve of the fourteen victories on offer and sealing his second title in a year at Mid-Ohio and equalling J. R. Hildebrand 's record of wins across a season.

#### Indy Pro 2000

Kirkwood graduated to the championship in 2019, selecting RP Motorsport Racing as his team. After faltering in earlier rounds, Kirkwood took his maiden victories in both races at Road America. From the second race at Toronto onwards, Kirkwood dominated the season and won his fourth consecutive title at the season finale in Laguna Seca despite being taken out by Danial Frost.

#### Indy Lights

In December 2019, Kirkwood partook in the post-season test at Sebring with reigning champions Andretti Autosport. The following month, Andretti confirmed Kirkwood would race with them for the 2020 season, only for that year's running of the championship to be canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kirkwood won the 2021 Indy Lights Championship for Andretti Autosport. In doing so, he became the first driver to win a championship in every Road to Indy series.

### IndyCar

Throughout 2021, Kirkwood was viewed with significant interest by different teams in the IndyCar Series paddock. Andretti Autosport owner Michael Andretti stated he intended to keep Kirkwood in the Andretti Autosport stable and reiterated this after Kirkwood won the Indy Lights championship. Andretti stated that he was considering moving Kirkwood to Formula E if a seat did not open up in IndyCar.

As part of winning the Indy Lights championship, Kirkwood was guaranteed to compete in three IndyCar races in 2022, including the 2022 Indianapolis 500.

On November 10, 2021, it was announced that Kirkwood would drive the No. 14 entry full-time for A. J. Foyt Enterprises during the 2022 IndyCar Series season. He had a best finish of 10th at Long Beach, and ranked 24th in points.

On June 1, 2022, Kirkwood and Andretti Autosport announced he would return to the Andretti stable for the 2023 season to replace the departing Alexander Rossi. Kirkwood took his first IndyCar win at the 2023 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Kirkwood took a second win at the 2023 Big Machine Music City Grand Prix.

### Sports car racing

With the 2020 Indy Lights season cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirkwood drove four races in the I MSA Prototype Challenge and also joined AIM Vasser Sullivan Racing for a limited GTD schedule.

## Racing record

### Career summary

As Kirkwood was a guest driver, he was ineligible to score points. Season still in progress.

### American open–wheel racing results

#### IndyCar Series

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

### Complete IMSA SportsCar Championship results

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Season still in progress.


MP Materials

# MP Materials

## Abstract

MP Materials Corp. is an American rare-earth materials company headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. MP Materials owns and operates the Mountain Pass mine, the only operating rare earth mine and processing facility in the United States. The rare earth materials industry is dominated by China, which produces 60% of the world's rare earth elements and processes 90% of these materials, including imports from other countries. MP Materials focuses its production on Neodymium - Praseodymium (NdPr), a rare earth material used in high-strength permanent magnets that power the traction motors found in electric vehicles, robotics, wind turbines, drones and other advanced motion technologies. MP Materials is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "MP". As of December 2021, JHL Capital Group, QVT Financial and CEO James Litinsky were the company's three largest shareholders, with about 7.7% of the company owned by Shenghe Resources, a Chinese rare earth business located in Sichuan.

## History

In 2015, Molycorp, the previous owners of the Mountain Pass mine, filed for bankruptcy. At the time, it was the only U.S. producer of rare earth elements. While in bankruptcy, Secure Natural Resources (SNR), a company owned by Molycorp's creditors, including JHL Capital Group, gained control of the mine's mineral rights. In June 2017, the Mountain Pass mine was purchased at auction for $20.5 million by a new entity called MP Mine Operations LLC (MPMO). MPMO was a consortium formed principally by JHL Capital Group, a Chicago-based investment firm led by James Litinsky, along with QVT Financial LP and Shenghe Resources. Shenghe, a Sichuan China rare earth company, held a minority, non-voting interest. At the time, Mountain Pass was in a state of "care and maintenance" and had only eight employees according to Litinsky.

Following the asset acquisitions and formation of the entities that became MP Materials, the company restarted operations at Mountain Pass. On July 15, 2020, the company announced a reverse takeover whereby MPMO and SNR would be merged with Fortress Value Acquisition Corporation to become a public company under the name MP Materials Corp. The transaction, which closed on November 17, 2020, raised $545 million. On November 18, 2020, MP Materials began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "MP".

In December 2021, MP Materials signed a long-term agreement with General Motors to provide neodymium-iron-boron magnets for use in GM's electric vehicle motors. As part of the contract, MP Materials also agreed to provide alloy and finished magnets to GM for its electric vehicles and to open a new factory located in Fort Worth, Texas to produce the magnets.

As of December 2021, JHL Capital Group, QVT Financial, and CEO James Litinsky were the company's three largest shareholders, and about 7.7% of the company was owned by Shenghe Resources, a Chinese company. Apart from institutions, other investors own 18%.

MP Materials and Australia's Lynas held a confidential discussion regarding a potential merger which fell through on February 5, 2024. Lynas is the second largest rare earth material company outside of China.

As of 2024, CEO James Litinsky was the company's largest shareholder. Other large shareholders include Vanguard, Shenghe Resources, BlackRock and Hancock Prospecting.

In April 2024, Hancock Prospecting, an Australian mining firm owned by Gina Rinehart, disclosed a 5.3% stake in MP Materials, comprising 8.8 million shares, and a 5.8% stake in Lynas.

### Mountain Pass mine

Discovered in 1949 in San Bernardino County, California, Mountain Pass mine consists of a bastnäsite ore-body with significant concentrations of rare earth elements. The mine once supplied most of the world's rare earth elements. Mountain Pass is the only operational rare earth mining and processing facility in the United States. The expected Mountain Pass mine life is approximately 24 years.

MP Materials produced 28,000 tonnes of rare-earth oxide equivalent from Mountain Pass in 2019, and 38,500 tonnes in 2020, or more than 15% of global production. As of late 2020, Shenghe Resources was the sole purchaser of MP Material's rare earth concentrate.

As of 2023, MP Materials had a three-stage plan for scaling its operations:

- Stage I: Production of rare earth concentrate

- Stage II: Production of separated and refined rare earths

- Stage III: Production of rare earth metals, alloys, and permanent magnets

As of 2023, stages II and III were underway and the company had begun production of refined rare earths. MP Materials signed a supply chain agreement with Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation in 2023.

## U.S. government contracts

In July 2020, the United States Department of Defense issued a preliminary contract to MP Materials intended to restore domestic heavy rare earth production and separation capabilities to the United States. In November 2020, the United States Department of Defense awarded MP Materials $9.6 million as part of a government effort to increase domestic production of rare earth materials.

On September 30, 2020, President Donald Trump issued an executive order targeting China's dominance of rare earth materials. In the executive order, he expressed concern for the heavy reliance of the US on China for 80 percent of rare earth materials. He reiterated the importance of producing and refining rare earth in the US and discussed various tariffs and government grants to rare earth material companies such as MP Materials.

In 2021, MP Materials received $3 million in funding from the United States Department of Energy to design and study the feasibility of a system to produce rare earth oxides and metals from coal by-products in collaboration with the University of Kentucky.

In February 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden announced at a press conference that the United States Department of Defense was investing $35 million into MP Materials as part of an effort to spur domestic rare earth production in the United States. Biden said that this move was designed to reduce America's reliance on rare earth minerals imported from other countries. The Biden administration said the federal funding is earmarked to assist the company to develop a new commercial facility for “heavy” rare earth mineral processing.

On May 24, 2024, the Biden Administration announced a 25 percent tariff on rare earth magnets from China, set to take effect in 2026. This marks the first time that critical minerals, including rare earth magnets, have been specifically included in the tariffs. Following the tariffs MP Materials put out a statement listing the tariffs. After the announcement, CEO James Litinsky attended an event with Biden at the White House.


The Addiction

# The Addiction

## Abstract

The Addiction is a 1995 American vampire horror film directed by Abel Ferrara and written by Nicholas St. John. Starring Lili Taylor, Christopher Walken, Annabella Sciorra, Edie Falco, Paul Calderón, Fredro Starr, Kathryn Erbe, and Michael Imperioli, the film follows a philosophy graduate student who is turned into a vampire after being bitten by a woman during a chance encounter on the streets of New York City. After the attack, she struggles coming to terms with her new lifestyle and begins developing an addiction for human blood. The film was shot in black-and-white and has been considered an allegory about drug addiction and the theological concept of sin.

The Addiction premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 1995, and was screened at the 45th Berlin International Film Festival on February 18, 1995, where it was nominated for the Golden Bear. The film was theatrically released in the United States on October 6, 1995. Despite underperforming commercially, the film received positive reviews, with Taylor's performance earning critical praise. At the 11th Independent Spirit Awards, Ferrara was nominated for Best Feature and Taylor was nominated for Best Female Lead.

Film critic Peter Bradshaw named The Addiction as one of his top ten favourite films in a 2002 Sight and Sound poll.

## Plot

Kathleen Conklin, an introverted graduate student of philosophy at New York University, is attacked one night by a woman who calls herself "Casanova". She pushes Kathleen into a stairwell, bites her neck and drinks her blood. Kathleen soon develops several traditional symptoms of vampirism such as aversion to daylight and distaste for food. She grows aggressive in demeanor and propositions her dissertation advisor for sex at her apartment, stealing money from his wallet after he falls asleep. Jean, a doctoral candidate in Kathleen's cohort, notices a drastic change in Kathleen's personality.

During finals week in the library, Kathleen meets a female anthropology student. They go to the woman's apartment to study, where Kathleen bites her neck. While the young woman weeps incredulously, Kathleen coldly informs her "My indifference is not the concern here, it's your astonishment that needs studying". Later, Kathleen runs into an acquaintance, who goes by the street name "Black", at a deli. She propositions him for sex and the two leave, but soon attacks him on an empty street and drinks his blood. Later on campus, Kathleen confronts Jean, rambling about the nature of guilt, before proceeding to bite her neck and drink her blood.

While walking on the street, Kathleen meets Peina, a vampire who claims to have almost conquered his addiction and as a result is almost human. For a time, he keeps her in his home, trying to help her overcome hers, recommending that she read William S. Burroughs ' Naked Lunch. Later, Kathleen defends her dissertation to a committee and is awarded her Doctorate of Philosophy. At the graduation party, she and Jean feast on the blood of a waitress in a storage closet. Afterwards, she, Jean, Casanova, and the other victims proceed to attack the other attendees in a bloody, chaotic orgy.

Kathleen, having overdosed from the bloody bacchanal and appearing wracked with regret, wanders the streets covered in blood. She ends up in a hospital and asks the nurse to let her die but the nurse refuses. Kathleen decides to commit suicide by asking the nurse to open the curtains. After the nurse leaves, Casanova appears in Kathleen's hospital room, shuts the curtains and quotes R. C. Sproul to her. Next, a Catholic priest visits Kathleen's room and agrees to administer Viaticum. In the final scene, Kathleen visits her own grave in broad daylight. In a voice-over, Kathleen quotes: "self-revelation is annihilation of self".

## Cast

- Lili Taylor as Kathleen Conklin

- Christopher Walken as Peina

- Annabella Sciorra as Casanova

- Edie Falco as Jean

- Paul Calderon as Professor

- Fredro Starr as Black

- Kathryn Erbe as Anthropology Student

- Michael Imperioli as Missionary

- Jamel Simmons as Black's Friend

- Robert W. Castle as Narrator / Priest

## Production

### Concept

According to Abel Ferrara, the characters of Peina and Casanova were originally written as a female and male respectively. When Walken read the script, he thought Peina was a male character and wanted to play the role. As a result, Walken had his way on portraying Peina whereas Casanova was played by Sciorra. Ferrara said in a 2018 interview that he intended the film to be an explicit metaphor for drug addiction; Ferrara had lived with a years-long addiction to heroin, and conceptualized the film as a Catholic redemption tale in which Kathleen, stricken by her lust for blood, accepts her powerlessness and submits to God before being reborn in the conclusion.

### Filming

The Addiction was shot on location in Manhattan, in Greenwich Village and on the New York University campus. The sequences inside Peina's home were shot in a loft owned by Julian Schnabel, who allowed Ferrara to film there. Lili Taylor recalled meeting with Ferrara and rehearsing scenes at his apartment during evenings leading up to the shoot. Taylor and co-star Michael Imperioli, whom she was dating at the time, would walk the streets in Manhattan late at night, which Taylor stated helped her get into the mindset of the character.

## Analysis

Scholar David Carter interprets The Addiction as a reimagining of the vampire film, in which the vampire's victims submit to being bitten and thus take on bloodlust for themselves

Historically within fiction, while vampires so often represent sexual desire, the baggage that came with that desire was being a slave to it. Vampires need and lust for blood at base primal level. Within The Addiction it's taken even further. Vampires are themselves the addicted and the addiction, foisting themselves alluringly upon people who want to dabble in something dangerous and all consuming. The words Casanova speaks to Kathleen (“Look at me and tell me to go away. Don't ask, tell me”) become a refrain in the film, the idea being that the prey want to become addicted even when they know the risks.

Scholar Tom Pollard interprets the film as a metaphor for drug addiction, which Ferrara has called as the theme of the film. "This plot relies on human willpower to control addiction... Eventually achieves the necessary willpower and seemingly triumphs over death after she's reborn as a human". In addition to the thematic parallel to drug addiction noted by several critics and scholars, Slant Magazine ' s Ed Gonzalez considers the film "perhaps the most fabulously serpentine political work of Ferrara's career, a quivering nexus of AIDS allegory, identity crisis, historical unease, and socio-economic panic". Film scholars Yoram Allon, Del Cullen and Hannah Patterson note the film's preoccupation with religion, salvation and self-destruction, which are recurrent in Ferrara's films and add that it "perfectly illustrates Ferrara's obsession with the collapse of moral order ".

Film critic Stephen Hunter interprets the film as a commentary on the world of academe, pointing out Kathleen's transformative disillusion with philosophy as a means of understanding the nature of good versus evil, "She's got a grudge against philosophy, which, in the long run, with all its constructs and rationalizations and insights, has proved somewhat inefficient as salvation".

## Release

The Addiction premiered in New York City on October 4, 1995, and opened in Los Angeles two days later, on October 6, 1995. It was distributed in North American markets by October Films, who one month earlier released Nadja, a vampire film also shot in black-and-white and set in New York City.

### Home media

The Addiction remained unreleased on DVD in North America throughout the 2000s, though a VHS was released in 1998 by USA Films. In March 2018, Arrow Films announced an upcoming Blu-ray release of the film available in North America and the United Kingdom, which was released on June 26, 2018. The Arrow Blu-ray features a new 4K restoration of the film, and contains contemporary interviews with Taylor, Walken, Ferrara, and composer Joe Delia, as well as an audio commentary with Ferrara, among other features. As of November 29, 2023, the film has been available as part of the Criterion Channel's 90's Horror collection.

## Reception

### Box office

The Addiction grossed a total of $46,448 during its opening weekend, playing in seven cinemas in the United States, averaging $6,635 per theater. It expanded to a total of 14 theaters before closing on January 11, 1996, concluding its theatrical run with a domestic gross of $307,308.

### Critical response

As of January 2, 2022, the film holds a rating of 74% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Abel Ferrara's 1995 horror/suspense experiment blends urban vampire adventure with philosophical analysis to create a smart, idiosyncratic and undeniably odd take on the genre."

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times praised Taylor's performance, and added: "Although Ferrara dares to be intellectual in a manner virtually unique in commercial American cinema, he nevertheless doesn't forget how to entertain in the gory, bravura manner associated with him. Although it undeniably helps, you don't have to know your Heidegger from Hamburger Helper to enjoy The Addiction as a grisly yet unusual thriller of the supernatural." The Washington Post ' s Hal Hinson was less laudatory of Taylor's performance, writing that she "seems less distinctive here than she has been in past roles." However, he praised Walken's performance, though summarized the film as "serious and passionate; conviction, too, is unquestionable. However, when he flashes images of historic atrocities of both the distant and recent past— Nazi death camps, the war dead in Bosnia—his ideas come across as shallow and banal. Also, inserting scenes of real-life horror into what is essentially a glorified genre exercise may strike some as the essence of bad taste." Caryn James of The New York Times expressed a similar sentiment, noting "When the film connects Kathleen's struggle to resist evil to My Lai and the Holocaust, those comparisons are exploitative in a way that even a genre-bending film can't get away with."

Stephen Hunter of The Baltimore Sun praised Taylor for portraying Kathleen "with dour, sexless intensity," and deemed the film "far sexier than Interview with the Vampire and far deadlier than the campy Nadja... It's extremely disturbing, a graduate- level movie for advanced students in any of three subjects: cinema, philosophy and debauchery."

### Accolades

At the 45th Berlin International Film Festival, the film was nominated for the Golden Bear award. Lili Taylor won the Sant Jordi Award for Best Foreign Actress. The film received Best Actress (Taylor), Best Film (Abel Ferrara) and Special Mention Award (Walken) at the Málaga International Week of Fantastic Cinema.

At the 11th Independent Spirit Awards, the film was nominated for Best Feature and Best Female Lead. At Mystfest, it won the Critics Award and was also nominated for Best Film. The film received high praise from critic Peter Bradshaw, who named it as one of his top ten favourite films in a 2002 Sight and Sound poll.

## Sources


John Ogilby

# John Ogilby

## Abstract

John Ogilby, Ogelby, or Oglivie (17 November 1600 – 4 September 1676) was a Scottish translator, impresario, publisher and cartographer. He was probably at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, though neither overtly acknowledged this. Ogilby's most-noted works include translations of the works of Virgil and Homer, and his version of the Fables of Aesop.

Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre in Werburgh Street, Dublin, and following the Restoration, that country's first Theatre Royal. Ogilby played a significant part in arrangements for the coronation of King Charles II. Following the Great Fire of 1666, Ogilby's large-scale map of the City of London was founded on precise survey work, and his Britannia is the first road atlas of England and Wales to be based on surveys and measurements, and drawn to scale.

## Life

### Childhood and youth (1600–1618)

John Ogilby's birthplace and parentage are historically uncertain; most early biographies of Ogilby rely on the notes of his assistant John Aubrey that were made for Aubrey's Brief Lives, a collection of biographies of Ogilby and others. The accuracy of Aubrey's account is questionable; Aubrey noted Ogilby was evasive about his origins, saying only he was born "near Edinburgh" in 1600 "of a gentleman's family". Later scholarship has discovered in 1653, Ogilby consulted the noted astrologer Elias Ashmole, and that Ashmole subsequently included Ogilby's horoscope in a personal collection of his horoscopes of notable people. The horoscope required precise data; Ashmole gives the exact location of Ogilby's birth as "Killemeure" (Kirriemuir near Dundee) and the exact date and time as 17 November 1600 at 04:00.

Ogilby believed himself to be at least a half-brother to James Ogilvy, 1st Earl of Airlie, given at birth to John Ogilby (senior), a well-off gentleman's tailor in Edinburgh, to be adopted. He was most likely educated at the Merchant Taylors' grammar school in London. At eleven years old, Ogilby was indentured as an apprentice to John Draper, one of just three licensed dance masters in London. At the time, a dancing master had expertise in "grammar (elocution), rhetoric, logic, philosophy, history, music, mathematics and in other arts": ability to dance in "Old Measures" was considered an essential skill for the upper classes. In 1617, Draper became a barrister at Gray's Inn and released Ogilby, who by then was highly accomplished as a dancer and a teacher, from the apprenticeship, allowing him to set up as a master in his own right and to take part in theatrical performances. A fall while dancing in a masque in February 1619 (aged 18), however, lamed him for life and ended his career as a dancer, though not as a teacher.

### Early adulthood (1619−1633)

Information about John Ogilby's early adulthood is limited. According to Ashmole's horoscope, in 1625, Ogilby suffered from a "double quotidian ague" – a form of malaria – he most probably contracted while fighting in the Low Countries under Colonel Sir Charles Rich. In May 1626, he is recorded as holding the rank of lieutenant in the army of Count Mansfield, subsequently becoming a prisoner of war in Dunkirk from July 1626 to June 1627. From June to November 1627, Ogilby was one of the few survivors of the ill-fated English Siege of Saint-Martin-de-Ré, returning to England as acting Captain of a supply ship.

### Ireland (1633−1646)

In August 1633, Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, the newly appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland, invited Ogilby to Ireland to be dancing tutor to his wife and children, and a member of his troop of guards. While in Dublin, Ogilby established Ireland's first theatre, the Werburgh Street Theatre. In 1637, as a consequence of this enterprise and to discourage competitors, Wentworth appointed Ogilby Master of the Revels for Ireland, with power to permit and forbid performances. The theatre remained open for four years; it had mixed success but it had to be closed as a result of the Irish Rebellion of 1641. With theatre and dancing ruled out, Ogilby spent his time learning Latin and then translating the complete works of Virgil.

### Writer and publisher, marriage (1647−1660)

Ogilby returned to England in January 1647, being shipwrecked on his homeward journey. The manuscript of his Virgil translation, which he had carefully placed in waterproof wrapping, survived the incident and was published in October 1648 with the sponsorship of Royalist gentlefolk and nobility.

In 1650, Ogilby married rich heiress Christian Hunsdon, a widow in her sixties and about 17 years Ogilby's senior. The following year, he published the first edition of his work The fables of Aesop paraphras'd in verse, and adorn'd with sculpture and illustrated with annotations, which was illustrated by Francis Cleyn. Ogilby's version of the text was very successful, running to five editions in the following 15 years.

During the next few years, Ogilby learnt Greek with the intention of creating and publishing a new translation of Homer 's Iliad; he planned it to be a magnificent undertaking with an estimated production cost of £5,000. The venture required sponsorship to pay for the engraved illustrations, each of which would cost about £10, but he secured only 47 sponsors. When the work published in March 1660, it had 600 pages but was substantially less illustrated than Ogilby had planned. With his known Royalist sympathies, Ogilby was a risk to potential patrons who needed to avoid offending the Puritan Commonwealth government.

### Restoration of the monarchy, the Great Fire and Royal Cosmographer (1661–1676)

The Restoration of Charles II brought favour back to Ogilby. In 1661, he was granted the unpaid title "Master of the Royal Imprimerie " (King's Printer). With Charles' coronation scheduled for 23 April 1661 – St. George's Day – the Common Council of the City of London contracted Ogilby to "compose speeches, songs and inscriptions" for the coronation procession from the Tower of London to Whitehall.

A year later, Ogilby was again made Master of the Revels in Ireland, and he started building a new theatre in Smock Alley, Dublin. The libretto of Katherine Philips ' musical play Pompey, which was performed at Smock Alley in 1663, credits Ogilby as the composer of the tunes. His second sojourn in Ireland was short-lived; in July 1664, he returned to plague-stricken London, leaving his step-son to take his place. In 1665, he published a second, revised edition of The Fables of Aesop, which was this time illustrated with prints by Wenceslaus Hollar.

During the Great Fire of London in 1666, Ogilby's house in Shoe Lane, together with its printing works and most of his stock, was destroyed; he estimated he had lost £3,000. After the Great Fire, the Corporation of London appointed Ogilby and his wife's grandson William Morgan as "sworn viewers", members of a group of four trustworthy gentlemen directed by Robert Hooke, to plot disputed property in the city. Ogilby later made what he called "the most accurate Survey of the City of London and Libertyes therof that has ever been done". By 1668, he had a new house in Whitefriars, and was ready to resume his printing and publishing work.

Ogilby's next major venture was a series of atlases of China, Japan, Africa, Asia and America. The first of these was An Embassy from the East India Company of the United Provinces..., first published in 1669 for Ogilby by John Macock and then reprinted in better quality by Ogilby himself in 1673. This book was substantially a translation of Johan Nieuhof 's Dutch publication of the same name with English copies of the Dutch engravings, supplemented by the first English translation of sections of Athanasius Kircher 's China Illustrata, relating various information from the Jesuit China Mission. Ogilby's Africa appeared in 1670 and was followed in rapid succession by Atlas Japanennsis (1670), America (1671), Atlas Chinensis (1671) and Asia (1673). In 1671, in response to his proposal to make a detailed survey and atlas of Great Britain, the King appointed Ogilby Royal Cosmographer. Thus, at about the age of 70 and with the scientific advice of Robert Hooke, Ogilby began work on Britannia, the project for which he is best known among cartographers.

#### Britannia

In 1675, Ogilby issued his atlas, which he titled Britannia, in the form of a strip map for each major route. The work contains 100 strip road maps that are accompanied by a double-sided page of text giving additional advice for the map's use, and notes on the towns shown and the pronunciations of their names. The roads were measured using a surveyor's wheel, which Ogilby called his "way-wiser", and were plotted at one inch to the statute mile – a scale of 1:63,360 – an Ogilby innovation. The maps include details such as the configurations of hills, bridges and ferries, and the relative sizes of towns. Ogilby is noted in cartography for these innovations.

The cost of the survey and the resulting maps is not known but in a prospectus, Ogilby quotes a preiminary estimate made by the "Lords Referees" – advisors to the Privy Council – as £14,000 (equivalent to about £ 2.9 million today). Ogilby worked hard to raise this considerable sum by holding lotteries, and with the help of Robert Hooke, who made multiple petitions to the Crown, the Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen of the Corporation of London and to noble families. Writing in 1925, geographer Sir Herbert Fordham said:

twice only... has there been such: that of John Ogilby, in 1671-5, and that of John Cary, quite at the end of the following century. In neither case, singularly enough, did the Government take any steps for the publication of the results of the survey, everything being left, in this respect, to private and commercial enterprise.

### Death

Ogilby died in September 1676 and was buried in the vault of St Bride's Church, one of Sir Christopher Wren 's new London churches. In his will, dated 27 February 1675, Ogilby bequeathed his entire estate to "my deare wife Christian Ogilby and to William Morgan, her grandchild". The value of his estate is not recorded but the British Museum has a copy of an announcement by Robert Morden, a factor, of a sale of "undisposed" books and maps from Ogilby's collection with an asserted value of £517.50 (equivalent to about £ 115,000 today).

## Legacy

In the years that followed his death, Ogilby's reputation as a poetic translator suffered from attacks made on him by John Dryden in his satirical work MacFlecknoe, and by Alexander Pope in The Dunciad. Following their lead, Scottish philosopher David Hume used Ogilby's work to illustrate the idea that common sense frequently appeals to a "standard of taste" in aesthetic matters:

Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between Ogilby and Milton, or Bunyan and Addison, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as Teneriffe, or a pond as extensive as the ocean.

Other writers were even more critical; Ogilby's entry in the Encyclopaedia Londinensis (about 1800) reads:

The chief merit of his Homer consists in a commendable and uniform fidelity to the sense of his author. As a poet, his pretensions to praise of any kind can scarcely be supported: he has neither animation of thought, accuracy of taste, sensibility of feeling, nor ornament of diction.

Such judgements stuck, and it is only since the mid-20th century that Ogilby's work has again been given scholarly attention, particularly his versions of Aesop's Fables. These, according to a short biography published by Theophilus Cibber in 1753, were "generally confessed to have exceeded whatever hath been done before in that kind". They renewed interest in the fable as a literary medium and arguably initiated suggestions of their adaptation to the troubled politics of the time.

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