Sat, Jun 01, 2002 page21

• Germans hate euro, long for mark

  PRICE GOUGING? Although inflation has remained low, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that prices have gone up since the euro's adoption

  • AP
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  The euro's honeymoon is over and, in Germany at least, the politicians are beginning to take notice.

  Five months after the colorful notes replaced 12 national currencies in a burst of euphoria, complaints persist across Europe that opportunistic businesses slipped outrageous price rises past their unsuspecting customers.

  "For everyday goods, the old price in marks has sometimes been replaced by the same number in euros," making the new prices about double, complained Mike Neumann, 36, standing outside a vegetable market at the Friedrichstrasse station.

  He cites fruit and vegetable markets as the worst offenders -- but many people have similar tales of outrageously inflated beer or meals in restaurants.

  Much of the evidence is, in fact, anecdotal. Inflation in the euro zone has moved little in recent months -- perhaps because items that were marked up have little weight in the mixture of goods used to measure it, and major expenses such as rent bills remained unchanged.

  Common complaints about inflated produce prices are dismissed by retailers as a result of the cold winter -- not the euro.

  The European Commission has estimated that the euro introduction may have increased prices overall by up to 0.16 percent. But consumers don't trust the numbers.

  "All prices are rounded up royally," said Brian Rijngoud, the marketing manager at leisure firm Coronel Kartracing in Amsterdam. "A round of drinks used to be 25 guilders (11.34 euros); now it's more like 20 euros."

  In Germany, the currency's nickname -- the "teuro," a play on the German word for expensive, "teuer" -- has gained a new lease of life. A recent survey suggested more than half of Germans, given the choice, would have their trusted mark back.

  Amid a high-profile campaign against "euro gougers" by the country's most widely read paper, Bild, the government -- which faces elections in September -- has convened a meeting with business and consumer representatives in an effort to address those fears.

  The meeting comes the week after Bild launched its launched its "teuro sheriff" campaign, offering a daily diet of euro-related horrors ranging from carrots to car batteries. Examples have included a family season ticket to a Bavarian swimming pool that now costs 66 euros, up from 100 marks (51.13 euros) and a Snickers bar that has crept up to 70 euro cents at a Hamburg gas station from 1 mark (51 euro cents).

  While ministers admit there's little they can do to force down the price of a haircut or a cappuccino, they hope they can restore some trust.

  Unease over how businesses handled the new currency extends well beyond Germany, although its complaints are the loudest.

  "Each country is bad," said Caroline Hayat, a Brussels-based spokeswoman for the European Consumers' Organization, grouping associations across the continent. As people's complaints go unaddressed, "they are getting more upset."

  A February survey by the organization recorded complaints to members about hairdressers, bakeries, parking lots, restaurants and cinemas, many of which Hayat said could only be explained by "unscrupulous retailers using the euro to increase prices."

  But "scattered cases of excessive price increases should not be abused to bring an entire industry into disrepute," the head of Germany's hotel and restaurant association, Ernst Fischer, said in an indignant response to comments this month by Finance Minister Hans Eichel, who said that consumers should simply boycott rip-off merchants.

  "There are a few black sheep, and there are many that did things really well," Eichel added.

  Still, "statistics are one thing and reality another," as Eichel's spokeswoman, Maria Heider, put it. "It would be a bad government that didn't react to the feelings of the population."

  That was just what the Bild newspaper accused politicians of doing, and similar complaints are being heard elsewhere.

  In Spain, the private Confederation of Consumers complains that the government, having urged businesses to avoid using the new currency to mask price hikes, itself allowed dramatic rises in transport fares -- which it had the power to regulate.

  "The government has stood out thanks to its absence," spokesman Antonio Lopez said. "It has failed to follow its own advice."

  Publication Notes

  Before and after

  * A Snickers bar now costs 70 euro cents. Before, it was one mark, or 51 euro cents. * A season ticket to a Bavarian swimming pool now costs 66 euros. That's up from 100 marks, or 51.13 euros.

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