- Thirty businesses have started using old currency
- Spain estimated to have saved 1.7bn euros in pesetas
- Jobless rate in Villamayor de Santiago above national average – with a third out of work
By Lee Moran
A desperate Spanish village has turned back time and reintroduced the peseta in a bid to kick-start its ailing local economy.
Residents in Villamayor de Santiago, 80 miles south-east of Madrid, initially held onto the old money for fear the euro would fold.
In recent months their prediction, made when their national currency was phased out ten years ago, has inched closer to coming true.
They have been hit with spiralling unemployment – one third of the village’s 2,500 residents are out of work – and a nationwide dwindling of confidence in the single currency.
The price of basic foodstuffs has also risen by a staggering 43 per cent since 2002 and there are fears Spain may have to be bailed out by the eurozone.
Shopkeepers in the village took the drastic step of going back to the peseta in the hope that some residents would still have old coins and notes left lying around their homes.
And their gamble seems to have worked – with 6,000 euros worth of pesetas being spent since 30 businesses started accepting it in January.
