I think that the adoption of the euro as Malta's currency will bring with it a welcome side-effect which has not yet been commented upon in the media.

This is that we will be spared any more letters in the local press from British visitors to Malta complaining that they are being short-changed when their British pounds are converted into our local currency.

Of course, such comments were baseless as, in fact, the Maltese lira exchange rate was not artificially fixed but was linked to a basket of currencies originally comprising various currencies, later reduced to just the US dollar, the British pound and the euro, and it ultimately ended up by being linked at a fixed rate solely to the euro.

So British tourists to our islands will now be exchanging their pounds for euros at the same exchange rate as they would get in any of the other 14 members of the European Union that, along with Malta, have adopted the euro as their currency.

No more room for baseless and irritating complaints.