THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL has signed off on the decision to allow Latvia to become the eurozone’s 18th member when it adopts the currency on 1 January 2014.
The council confirmed yesterday that the Baltic country had fulfilled all the criteria allowing it to join the euro with the European Commission, European Parliament and the European Central Bank having already signed off on the decision.
It means that euro notes and coins will be issued in Latvia from next January with the conversion rate set at at 0.702804 Latvian lats to one euro. Ireland’s conversion rate when it adopted the currency in 2002 was one euro to 0.787564 Irish punts.
Latvia is the first country to join the euro since its fellow Baltic nation Estonia in 2011 and the sixth of the 12 newer EU members to adopt the currency.
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