I know that some small countries have no currency of their own and just use the U.S. dollar. Ecuador comes immediately to mind, but I think there are some Caribbean countries that also use the dollar.
Have any nations that are not part of the EU, similarly, adopted the euro as their currency?
Are any considering it?
Monaco and Andorra are the two that spring to mind. It’s also commonly used as a parallel in areas such as Kosovo, which have a large European military presence, in the way that US$ are used in some parts of central America. And plenty of places in Switzerland will accept it.
Andorra, Monaco, San Marino and the Vatican use the Euro, also the Kosovo (not-quite-a-country).
Montenegro too according to:
Kosovo, too. But they don’t really have an economy: there are some estimates that as much as 70% of economic activity in Kosovo is due to aid inflows, mostly European.
The euro is not just a parallel currency, in unofficial use. The German mark was declared to be the legal tender currency by the UN governor of the province a few years back. The euro, of course, succeeded the mark.
My mistake - thanks, dqa
My 2002 CIA World Factbook says that French Guiana, Guadelupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Reunion and Saint Pierre et Miquelon all use the Euro. Each of these is a Dependency of France, although a couple of them are additionally described as “self-governing.”
And here’s an on-line listing of world currencies in the 2004 CIA World Fact Book.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/fields/2065.html
I highly recommend downloading a copy of this valuable and comprehensive resource. You can do that here:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/download.html
Actually, French Guiana for one is simply a part of France, as far as the government is concerned - it is a “département d’outre-mer” or DOM, which is just as much a part of France as any other département on the mainland. I am not 100% sure of the status of the other areas you mention. I know there are “DOMs” and “TOMs” (territoires d’outre-mer).
Ah, here we are: http://www.citepa.org/emissions/regionale/outre_mer/index_en.htm
Certainly the four DOMs are as much part of France as Marseilles or Paris.
All very interesting, but I’m vaguely disappointed.
Instead of postage-stamp countries like Andorra or San Marino, I was looking for countries that you’d expect to have its own currency, based on population or political influence. But that uses the Euro anyway.
A euro-equivalent to Ecuador, in other words. Are there any of those?
Doesn’t appear to be. Mebbe it’s just too new.
There are also countries which have their own currencies that are pegged to the Euro by treaty.
From here:
Nope, there’s no such countries. The major western European countries not using the Euro are the UK, Norway, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden (I don’t think I’ve forgotten any 
). Most of the rest of Europe is planning on getting there at some stage, but always within the EU system.
Ecuador adopted the $ out of desperation. Given time, it’s possible that a country finding itself in a comparable economic meltdown would, for geographic and trade reasons, find it preferable to use the Euro in such a way. Belarus, perhaps? A former Soviet state such as Azerbaijan? Iraq?! (Hey, it does share a border with a prospective EU member…)
I thought you were giving Montenegro short shrift by calling it a postage-stamp country, but it is in fact smaller than all of the “real” countries (no offense to the good folks of Palau) that use the greenback. I’ll ignore the fact that Kosovo isn’t really a country for this list - actually, neither is Montenegro, at least for the next year or two.
Dollar countries
Ecuador 283560 km²
El Salvador 21040
East Timor 15007
Palau 458
Micronesia 702
Marshall Islands 181
Euro countries
Montenegro 13938 km²
Kosovo 10887
Andorra 468
San Marino 61
Monaco 2
Vatican City 0
Iceland isn’t using the euro either, if we’re counting that as Western Europe.
The list of countries in which the US dollar is accepted (even preferred) on the ground, although not valid tender in an official sense, is huge.
The Bosnian “Konvertible Mark” was pegged to the German mark, although people seemed to prefer the genuine article to their own new currency. The KM is now pegged to the euro, and I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if people would prefer to accept “real” euros over them.