The European Commission and the European Central Bank have given their agreement. Croatia will go to the euro on January 1, 2023.
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The process is not entirely concluded but the result is no longer in doubt: Croatia will become the twentieth member country of the euro zone on January 1, 2023. Wednesday, June 1, the European Commission and the Bank European central (ECB) have delivered; In parallel, their two reports on the “convergence” of this Balkan country. “The Commission concluded that Croatia is ready to adopt the euro,” notes the press release.
It now recommends that the European Council officially approve this accession. This should be done during a meeting of the ministers of the economy of the twenty-seven in July. Then, Croatia will adopt the double display of prices in the fall, then switch to the single -year -old coins and tickets. The Kuna, used since 1994, will disappear, with a exchange rate of 7.53450 for one euro.
The approval of the accession of Croatia is not a surprise but marks the culmination of a long process, which started shortly after the country became a member of the European Union in 2013. That -CI requires respecting a series of economic criteria: level of public debt and deficit, inflation, financial health of banks, serious statistical data, fight against money laundering … The country must gradually show white.
Proof that the process is not necessarily simple, Croatia but also Bulgaria entered at the same time, in July 2020, in the European exchange mechanism (known as “ERM II” in the jargon). This decisive phase, anteroom of accession to the euro, places the local exchange rate in a fixed range more or less 15 % compared to the euro. Today, however, only Croatia has received the green light from the European Commission and the ECB. Bulgaria postponed its accession to January 1, 2024, due to lack of sufficient economic progress.
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It must be said that the period was difficult. “The pandemic and the war in Ukraine have made the task more difficult to achieve convergence,” explains Philip Lane, the ECB chief economist. Croatia, a very touristy country, was particularly affected by the COVVI-19. As everywhere else, the country’s debt has leaps, exceeding the limit of 60 % of the gross domestic product (GDP), in principle imposed on all member countries (even if half of the countries do not currently respect it). Unlike Bulgaria, Croatia has made significant budgetary efforts, lowering its debt by 87.3 % of GDP in 2020 to 79.8 % last year. “A strong decline”, welcomes the report of the ECB.
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