Recital 3

(3)The Commission's Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the Economic and Social Committee, the Committee of the Regions and the European Central Bank of 3 April 2001 on the preparations for the introduction of euro notes and coins announced that the Commission would consider using all the instruments at its disposal and would take all the steps necessary to ensure that the costs of cross-border transactions were brought more closely into line with the costs of domestic transactions, thus making the concept of the euro zone as a "domestic payment area" tangible and transparently clear to citizens.