The team '€uroCoins' from S. Lourenço Secondary School (Portalegre) won the Portuguese Generation €uro Students' Award today. The final took place in Banco de Portugal, Lisbon.

Miguel Ângelo Amaral, Beatriz Ferreira Braz, Guilherme Henrique Vilhais, João Pedro Meira, Maria Teresa Moura and their teacher Jorge Manuel Vilhais, from S. Lourenço Secondary School (Portalegre), were awarded first prize, which they received from the Governor of Banco de Portugal, Carlos da Silva Costa, and will go to Frankfurt am Main (Germany) in May to take part in the European prize-giving ceremony.
The Generation €uro Students' Award is the first competition for schools on monetary policy organised by the European Central Bank and the Eurosystem national central banks. This initiative aims to raise awareness among secondary school students about the importance of the euro’s monetary policy and of price stability.

The following teams took part in the final:

• €uroCoins - Escola Secundária de S. Lourenço (Portalegre) – 1st place
• Escudo ao Euro - Escola Secundária do Restelo (Lisboa) – 2nd place
• €uroLife - Escola Secundária D. Sancho II (Elvas) – 3rd place
• Ceteris Paribus - Colégio Liceal de Santa Maria de Lamas (Aveiro) – 4th place (ex aequo)
• CLSML Economics - Colégio Liceal de Santa Maria de Lamas (Aveiro) – 4th place (ex aequo)

Jury

The jury for the final was chaired by the Vice-Governor of Banco de Portugal, José Berberan Ramalho, and comprised other members of staff of Banco de Portugal and two journalists.

Competition rounds

In October 2014, Banco de Portugal invited Portugal's secondary schools to take part in the Portuguese Generation €uro Students' Award. In the first round of the competition, students answered a questionnaire on the euro's monetary policy as a team. In total, 88 teams from 44 Portuguese schools participated in this round.

The teams with the highest marks were invited to write an essay, in which they had to predict the monetary policy decision of March 2015 by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, giving relevant arguments.

Of the 24 teams invited to the second round of the competition, 12 submitted essays. The five best were chosen for the competition final, where they defended their arguments in front of the jury.

Previous award winners

• 1st Award (2011/12): Team from São Lourenço Secondary School (Portalegre)
• 2nd Award (2012/13): Team Europolis from D. Sancho II Secondary School (Elvas)
• 3rd Award (2013/14): Team from Amato Lusitano Secondary School (Castelo Branco)

Lisbon, 22 April 2015