Finance Ministers from eleven countries in the European Union gather in Brussels today to complete the last stage in the creation of the new single currency, the Euro.

Their meeting is being hailed as one of the most important in post-war Europe.

The Finance Ministers will ratify the exchange rates for converting national currencies into Euros when the single currency is launched tomorrow.

The national currencies will disappear in 2002.

In the meantime, the euro will be used in financial transactions, and consumers can have Euro-denominated bank accounts and credit cards.

Britain, Denmark and Sweden have so far declined to join the Euro -- Greece failed to fulfill the economic conditions.