My 10-year-old daughter likes brown sauce on her chips. Perhaps it's hereditary.

At college, I had a reputation for surviving on brown sauce butties and the occasional raw onion.

Anyway, her visits to Brussels have left her less than content.

Chips were invented in Belgium, but to this day, across most of Europe, you will be lucky to find anything more colourful than tomato sauce to put on them, and the Belge preference is for mayonnaise.

So it's good news to hear an EU committee is considering whether brown and other fruity sauces should be traded across Europe.

It sounds daft of course, but it's not.

Each country has always had its own rules. But we're building a single market within the EU, and that means removing the obstacles by way of mutual agreement. There is really nothing different between having to agree the definition of a sauce and the definition of a widget (whatever that is!).

Britain is part of a huge EU market of 370 million people, and item by item, we are tearing down the barriers to allow free trade. What an opportunity there is for us to reveal to the rest of Europe the wonders and delights of British brown sauce!

A friend pulled out a 100 franc (£10) note the other day. "I didn't know I had any of those left," he said.

The 600-year old French franc is legal tender for a month or more yet, but like the currencies of the other 11 countries within the eurozone, it virtually disappeared within days of the launch of the euro.

The old notes and coins started to look old-fashioned as soon as the euro appeared, and now they've become a complete nuisance. No-one wants them.

All those people who predicted the launch of the euro would be chaotic have had to eat their words. It's been a smooth and successful operation just about everywhere. In fact, the whole process has been a doddle, and people have enjoyed the sense of being part of something truly historic.

What a pity that Britain is trailing along behind. We'll catch up and join the single currency eventually, but instead of being at the back, I'd have liked us to have been out in the vanguard.

Chris Davies

Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West