Latvia has marked the new year with a new currency as it became the eighteenth country to join the euro.<br /><br />Shoppers out in the supermarkets on New Year’s Day expressed the usual worries about prices rising with the changeover, which went smoothly according to banks and retailers.<br /><br />There was some confusion at the checkouts as people paid with the old money and received change in the new euro coins and banknotes: <br /><br />One woman said: “Nice, good-looking money, but unfortunately I still don’t understand it.”<br /><br />Another shopper added: “It seemed a bit strange – the fact that we have these completely different banknotes. It feels a little odd, yes.”<br /><br />Latvia’s prime minister, Valdis Dombrovskis, flashed the cash with the first withdrawal alongside Andrus Ansip, his counterpart from neighbouring Estonia, which started using the single European currency two years ago.<br /><br />The remaining Baltic EU member, Lithuania, hopes to follow next year.<br /><br />Latvia joins the euro as it recovers from a major economic crisis and the worst recession in the EU. It needed an international bailout amid stringent austerity measures.<br /><br />At the official launch ceremony Dombrovskis said euro adoption was an opportunity, but not a guarantee of wealth, and the country should not relax its fiscal policy: “It’s not an excuse not to pursue a responsible fiscal and macroeconomic policy,” he said.<br /><br />Latvia enters the euro zone as the single currency bloc marks its 15th anniversary, and the euro is now used by 333 million Europeans.<br /><br />Even so, neighbouring Lithuania is the only remaining EU country showing much enthusiasm for euro admission.<br /><br />That follows the problems experienced by eurozone members Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus which had to seek international bailouts for their government finances or their banks.
