ZAGREB, Dec 31 — Croatia was counting the final hours these days right before switching to the euro and moving into Europe’s passport-no cost zone — two milestone ways for the state given that joining the EU just about a decade ago.
At midnight (2300 GMT Saturday) the Balkan nation will bid farewell to its kuna currency and come to be the 20th member of the eurozone.
It will also be the 27th country in the passport-free Schengen zone, the world’s most significant, which enables additional than 400 million persons to move freely about its users.
Professionals say the adoption of the euro will aid defend Croatia’s economic system at a time when inflation is soaring all over the world just after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent food and gasoline price ranges by means of the roof.
But feelings amongst Croatians are combined — when they welcome the finish of border controls, some stress about the euro swap, with ideal-wing opposition group saying it only added benefits substantial nations this kind of as Germany and France.
“We will cry for our kuna, costs will soar,” explained Drazen Golemac, a 63-yr-outdated pensioner from Zagreb.
His spouse, Sandra, disagreed, expressing the “euro is extra beneficial”.
“Absolutely nothing changes on January 1, all is calculated in euros for two many years anyway,” reported clerk Neven Banic.
Officers have defended the decisions to join the eurozone and Schengen, with Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic expressing Wednesday that they had been “two strategic goals of a deeper EU integration”.
– ‘Stability and safety’ –
Croatia, a former Yugoslav republic of 3.9 million folks that fought a war of independence in the 1990s, joined the European Union in 2013.
The euro is currently mainly present in Croatia.
About 80 for each cent of lender deposits are denominated in euros and Zagreb’s principal trading partners are in the eurozone.
Croatians have extensive valued their most valued property these kinds of as cars and apartments in euros, displaying a lack of assurance in the neighborhood currency.
“The euro certainly brings (economic) balance and safety,” Ana Sabic of the Croatian Countrywide Lender (HNB) advised AFP.
Industry experts say adoption of the euro will reduced borrowing problems amid economic hardship.
Croatia’s inflation amount reached 13.5 per cent in November in comparison to 10 p.c in the eurozone.
Analysts say eastern EU customers with currencies outside of the eurozone, these as Poland or Hungary, have been even extra vulnerable to surging inflation.
– Borders gone –
Croatia’s entry into the Schengen borderless area will also deliver a strengthen to the Adriatic nation’s critical tourism market, which accounts for 20 for every cent of its GDP.
The long queues at the 73 land border crossings with fellow EU associates Slovenia and Hungary will become history.
Border checks will only stop on March 26 at airports owing to technological issues.
Croatia will even now use demanding border checks on its japanese border with non-EU neighbours Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia.
The battle in opposition to unlawful migration remains the essential challenge in guarding the EU’s longest external land border at 1,350 kilometres (840 miles). — AFP