BERLIN – A 10-euro bill buys a fine organic Riesling at the Alles Fliesst wine shop in Berlin's bustling Kreuzberg neighborhood. Or, as some regular customers do, you can hand the cashier something else: 10 locally printed Berliners.
Same goes for a jar of cinnamon honey, 4.20 euros or 4.20 Berliners, at the organic grocery upstairs, and for an espresso, 2.30 euros or 2.30 Berliners, across the street at the Cafe V vegetarian cafe, with its red ceiling, old chandelier and pipe-smoking clientele.
The waitress even takes her tip in Berliners.
The Berliner, issued by a local environmental group, is one of about 20 local currencies that have begun circulating over the past five years in Germany. Concern about the impact of globalization and distant multinational corporations on their communities and locally owned businesses is one of the motivations behind making local money that will stay at home, community activists say.
About 10,000 Berliners have been issued – printed by the Bundesdruckerei, the privatized former state printer, which also produces euros for Germany's central bank – and they are accepted in 190 Berlin shops, many of them in Kreuzberg, a stronghold of Berlin's counterculture and the environmental Greens Party.
The Berliner is issued by the Gruene Liga, or Green League, environmental organization, at the wine shop, a cafe, a church and a local alternative school. One Berliner costs one euro, and the Green League keeps the euros in the bank so shops that get Berliners from customers can turn them in for euros.
The shops get only 95 cents back for each Berliner, with 3 percent going to local causes such as a children's farm, a playground, and a church program for teens overcoming drug problems. Two percent funds a slightly better exchange rate to spur people to buy larger amounts of Berliners such as 50 or 100.
Activists have compared the slice taken by the issuer to the fees credit card companies charge – the price paid for winning over business. Berliners come in ones, fives and tens, so uneven sums can mean change in euros.
The principle behind a neighborhood currency is that it will be spent to support locally owned businesses and strengthen the community, said Suzanne Thomas, who leads the volunteer-run Berliner project.
“My outlook would be that you should obtain as many of the things you need every day from the local region, because if I have small shops in the street where I live, this adds to the quality of life,” Thomas said. “I can walk out the door and get what I need and not drive to some super shopping center.”
She said the currency isn't a protest against the euro notes and coins, introduced in 2002: “We think you should have both in your pocket, euros and Berliners.”
The practice of locally issuing micro-currency has been catching on in Germany since 2001, when the Roland was issued in Bremen. It has been joined by the Carlo in Karlsruhe, the Cherry Blossom in Witzenhausen, and the Chiemgauer – one of the largest with more than 400 participating businesses – in Bavaria's Chiemgau region; others have popped up in Basel, Switzerland, and in Schrems, Austria.
