We may not have to worry about the emetic-sounding Euro after all, because Year 2000 Problem specialists (charlatans?) say that once commerce and industry have come to terms with that conversion, when they realise the costs of converting for the single currency, they will put their foot down and refuse to accept it – but it may not be the Euro we have to worry about anyway: according to NRC Handelsblad, engineer Robert Apon of Etten-Leur registered the word Euro as a name for coins and banknotes with the Benelux trademark office in The Hague on October 4 1995, and his lawyer insists that anybody using the name on money in any of the Benelux countries will be obliged to pay Apon a fee, and while the Finance Ministry has asked its lawyers to see if they can find legal flaws in Apon’s trade mark, the lawyer is confident that the government would just have to pay up – I have no doubt that Mr Apon has a very strong case, he chortled.
