Euro faces reality check

There is a choice of paying in euros or local currency

How will consumers and the financial markets react to the euro on the first full day of business after its launch?

Some 300 million people across 12 European Union nations got their new currency yesterday.

Today the markets are open. There is a new reality in the financial world. We report from Frankfurt, the home of the European Central Bank, and of the biggest stock market in Euroland.

Here, the argument, over how long Britain can stay outside, is being stoked by those, such as the Europe Minister Peter Hain, who suggest that it is inevitable that we will join.

Last year Toyota, the Japanese car maker, said Britain must join the euro soon or risk losing Toyota's business. Brian Jackson, senior director at Toyota UK, told us he was encouraged by the current debate.

From the other side of the debate, Dominic Cummings, the director of the NO campaign, said he believed Mr Hain's comments represented further evidence of a euro split between the prime minister and the chancellor.

Also on the programme, as Tony Blair resumes his globetrotting diplomacy with a tour of the Indian subcontinent, we spoke to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesman Menzies Campbell about what Mr Blair is likely to achieve.

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