Life was cheaper before the implementation of the Euro

Many of us ventilate feelings about our about the fact that our daily groceries because have gotten so expensive since the introduction of the Euro, and it is often on moments like these that people tell us they want to go back to the times of our "old and trusted" guilder. What if one would do a study as to find out if this is really true? Are these feelings correct? Or not?

Life is expensive

As long as we can remember

Even in history there will have been people who will have found it difficult to live on their earnings and who will have called-out that life was becoming unpayable. This will probably be a normal sound heard eversince the moment that payed jobs were invented. But we should not forget that in the 20th century not only prices have developped but that also our wages have grown immensely.
I'm not going to give you a history overview here, if you want that you can find it in history books or on the internet.

The guilder disappeared

The learned men thought it better fit for all countries in Europe to work with only one currency. Big example for them has of course been the U.S.A. where over 50 states are living with 1 currency for ages.
A load of highly - educated gentlemen concluded that the Euro was the way to go and so our trusted guilder was replaced by the new coin.
Acceptance of the new coin, not only in the Netherlands, was lukewarm at most and soon rumour arose about producers forgetting to convert the currencies and that the "€" sign would in near future replace the "fl." one on one.
Meanwhile millions of people in Europe have been paying in Euros for over 12 years now, but the call for the trusty old currency can still be heard in many countries. 

Search

To try and find out if these feelings could be substantiated by figures I decided a while ago to try and find information on price developments since the introduction of the Euro.
What better tool to use than the internet for this search, because it is said that everything can be found there, isn't it? Well, guess again!
Lots of links can be found on price development, but on as many one finally finishes in a PDF- file giving you very general information and some graphics showing that the purchasing power is almost keeping pace with the increases in supermarkets.
Moreover, all sites where I found information have strong bonds with the government.

CBS

At long last I found 1 site that really shows a table of price developments and this site is owned by the C.B.S. (Central Bureau of Statistics). I found, however this list to be very limited, and I coudn't find any remarks as to units (kilo, piece, liter), thus making it hard to get a good overview. It does get clear that overall prices have increased lightly and some peaks, as we see in luncheon meat that almost doubled.
We all know that cocoa, coffee and products related to those have shown big increases, nothing new there. Sunflower-oil and canned green beans however, to me are a big surprise!
A positive remark for the cucumber, which is even cheaper than 12 years ago!
Is it really true that there is no more information to be found on this subject? Can't be! 

IMF

And then you come across a report of the spring meeting of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) 2008, of which the opening text is as follows:
"Since a low in 2001 the international food prices rose on average by about 190%. Most of this increase was in the past 6 months. High food prices have a direct impact on the fate of the vulnerable and the poor and are a political time bomb. "
Is it strange that this "low" was in 2001? Just after the introduction of the Euro? And can't it be of influence that 1 Euro was the equivalent of 2.20371 guilders?
We didn't see increases by 220% in 2008 yet, but we now live in 2013 and the prices have only gone up further. It is possible to find a lot more information in this IMF document, but that might take things too far for now.

Searched and found

"He who searches will find" is an old proverb and in modern times it is easy to find a lot of data on a diversity of subjects (sometimes it's a little harder). What I did was a minimal attempt to find out whether the people's feelings are right or that we are all held back by politics. To each of us our own opinion.
I'm sure there is a lot more to be found on this subject, if you're really into it and have the time to research and compare texts. Maybe I will do so on the cold and dark winternights..... 

Statistics say our feelings are wrong, but internationally prices have increased heavily in the last 10 years. Is it politics or us?