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I remember visiting family friends in Yugoslavia just before it broke down, and getting a new bag of money from the ATM every morning because the rate was so volatile and the currency was basically worthless.
Which ties into the question about the German mark. It was a strong currency and the second largest reserve currency after the USD. It had some use outside Germany too, it was accepted for payment in some countries that had more volatile local currencies, and Kosovo and Montenegro straight up used it as their official currency until they switched to the Euro. Bosnia’s currency is named after it, uses its unit names, and was pegged to it (now to the Euro).
One reason for the Euro, and one reason why there was resistance to it in Germany, was the idea that a common currency could keep a unified Germany’s economy in check. Especially France wanted this, and Germany agreed to make an eventual monetary union part of the package deal for German reunification.
But the general idea of the Euro is that it reduces barriers to trade. And as opposed to the previous paragraph, this part actually worked.
Some EU countries negotiated exceptions to the Euro a long time ago (like Denmark), but in general there are requirements a country needs to fulfill before joining the monetary union. Most countries that aren’t using the Euro now are legitimately not meeting these requirements. Sweden is the main one actively not trying to meet them but that’s an exception. Recently there have been more voices that this was a mistake, as research has shown that the Euro significantly increased trade and foreign direct investment, and in comparison we can see that Sweden just did not get those benefits.
Parallel pricing is kind of normal. People need to get used to the new numbers. We had this too when the Euro was new.
Back then, were people paid in Marks before the transition? When Euro became the standard, did people's salaries get converted overnight?
People mostly got paid in their local currency.
For the initial batch of countries, the exchange rate got fixed on 31st of December 1998, and behind the scenes banks started working with Euros (in digital form) the next day, but for most people everything looked the same in day to day.
Then on January 1st 2002, everyone's bank account got automatically converted to Euros and you could get Euros from the ATM, but for a few weeks you could pay in both Euros or the old currency (I think until the end of February if I remember correctly). After that money had be exchanged in the bank.
I think the process still looks the same when new countries join.
During the initial transition into Euro from your country of residence, have you seen parallel pricing at stores? Like did they display prices in both currencies? What about job listings that advertise salaries or minimum wage, were those converted straight to Euro on day one?
The prices had to be equivalent on both currencies. There were prices increases, but mostly for things where there was some psychological value threshold (for example imagine that the coffee was a very round 50 of the local currency for the last 10 years and then they used the change in the number because of the Euro to catch up with inflation).