Thursday saw the last opportunity to spend traditional European currencies before the single currency becomes sole legal tender in euro-zone countries on March 1.

The ascendancy of the single currency inevitably puts pressure on the UK to sign up but pro-Europe politicians will be content to let the success of the euro do their talking for them.

Historic currencies such as the punt, guilder and franc have already been dustbinned by Ireland, the Netherlands and France, and at midnight (CET) tonight another nine European currencies will be abandoned.

This summer UK tourists used to juggling peseta, lire or deutschmarks will now need just one currency converter - although the mental arithmetic involved in calculating the euro's fluctuating exchange rate, currently 0.60994 to the pound, is not simple.

And widely predicted doomsday scenarios of consumer confusion, economic chaos, counterfeit notes and coins have failed to materialise.

Although 32 per cent of Germans say they regret the loss of the deutschmark, the speed with which old currencies have disappeared and the easy switch to 15 billion euro banknotes and 51 billion coins is testament to the pragmatic indifference shown by the EU's 300 million citizens to the changeover.

Euro-success and a summer where tens of millions of UK citizens will experience the single currency for themselves on cafe terraces across Europe will inexorably give weight to the idea of British membership.

Germany's finance minister, Hans Eichel, predicts the successful switch - and Germany was initially highly sceptical of the single currency - will bring the UK into the euro-fold "in the not too distant future".

Peter Hain last week predicted that the European experience would speed the demise of the pound.

And some close to Tony Blair believe that letting the euro do the talking will do more to ease the question of British membership than a thousand speeches by politicians.

As the former Downing Street adviser and South Shields MP, David Miliband told this website in December: "The deed of the introduction of notes and coins will probably have more effect over the next few months than any words that politicians can come up with".