According to a survey, the D-Mark still has many supporters in Germany 20 years after the introduction of the euro.
After all, a third (33 percent) of those surveyed stated in the Forsa survey published on Tuesday on behalf of the television station RTL / NTV that they would rather have the old German currency back.
More than half of the respondents (54 percent) sometimes convert euro prices into D-Marks for larger purchases.
However, the percentage of D-Mark nostalgic people has decreased considerably compared to previous surveys: According to the information, 45 percent of people in Germany still felt a longing for the D-Mark ten years ago.
Accordingly, the proportion of those who sometimes convert euro prices into D-Marks fell even more sharply; in 2009 it was still 70 percent.
For eleven of the 15 EU member states at the time, the euro became legal tender on January 1, 1999 - initially only electronically, and from January 1, 2002 on in the form of notes and coins.
Today the euro is the official means of payment for around 340 million people in 19 EU countries.
A good two thirds of those surveyed (69 percent) and thus less than ten years ago (79 percent) say that life in Germany has become more expensive with the introduction of the euro.
Economists explain this “perceived inflation” with the fact that the prices of a number of everyday goods rose after the currency changeover.
The officially recorded rate of price increases, however, shows that the euro is not a “expensive euro”.