Letter: Europe's 2000 bug

Sir: M J Knight (letter, 18 December) writes that "the response of the European Union [to the millennium bug] is to rush into the single currency in 1999".

The 1999 date was set down as the last possible deadline in the Maastricht treaty in 1992. It seems a bit rich to blame EU politicians if computer departments around the continent have been too stupid to do anything about it before now.

Peter Johnson

Brussels