Croatia begins new euro and Schengen zone era

Croatia is beginning on a momentous year, joining the border-free Schengen zone and abandoning its own currency, the kuna, in favour of the euro. When it became the EU’s newest member in 2013, the country pledged to entering the eurozone.

Nationalist parties wanted to maintain the kuna, but the constitutional court overturned them. It is the 27th country to join the Schengen area, which permits 400 million people to freely travel between countries.

Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, praised the moves as “two enormous milestones” for the EU’s youngest member state.

She claimed 1 January – when the reforms formally happened – will be a day “for the history books”.

Above all, this would be a time of “pleasure and pride for the Croatian people,” she declared. “It is proof of your incredible journey, hard work, and determination.”

Croatia’s Prime Minister, Andrej Plenkovic, said on Sunday that the two historic amendments had “achieved its strategic, state, and political aims” for the country, a former Yugoslav republic that waged an independence war in the 1990s.

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