MILAN: Italy will no longer mint 1- and 2-cent euro coins from 2018, a parliamentary committee decided at the weekend.
The move means all prices in Italy will be rounded to the nearest 5 cents.
Italians were receiving the small copper coins as change but were not spending them, claimed Sergio Boccadutri, the member of the ruling center-left Democratic Party who proposed the measure.
The coins are not accepted by parking meters, vending machines or toll booths, he told press. He said they were often left in drawers at home, abandoned in car doors or left at the supermarket checkouts to avoid cluttering pockets.
“In short, it is a production loss, because they cost more than they are worth,” he told the newspaper.
The useless coins are just abandoned in car doors, hallway drawers and at supermarket checkouts, says the bill’s backer. Germany, ever fond of the cash economy, decided a few years ago to keep the change.
Since the euro was introduced in 2004, Italy has spent millions on manufacturing the coins, whose inside is made of iron and whose outside is copper.
In Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands and Ireland, prices are often rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 cents to avoid using the smaller denominations, though they remain legal tender.
Other European Union countries, including Germany, have also considered scrapping the 1- and 2-cent coins, but decided against it.
