Date published: 2006/05/16
The BBC says:
The first new entrant since 2003 to the twelve-member eurozone has been agreed by the European Commission.
Slovenia's application to join the single currency on 1 January 2007 was accepted by the Commission.
The application by the former communist state must now be approved by the European Parliament and EU member states, who will set the exchange rate.
However, Lithuania's application for euro membership was rejected because its inflation rate was too high.
If all goes to plan, EU finance ministers will fix the exchange rate between the euro and the tolar, the Slovenian currency, on 11 July.
The euro could be legal tender in the new year, with just a two-week transition period during which it circulates alongside the Slovene tolar.
The Slovenian central bank would have the task of distributing 155 million euro coins and 42 million bank notes by 1 January.
The news was generally welcomed in the small Alpine nation of two million people, which borders Italy and Austria but was formerly part of communist Yugoslavia.
"This is a matter of prestige. I'm boasting to visitors that Slovenia will be the first [of the new EU members] to adopt the euro," said Franjo Bobinac, chief executive of Slovenia's largest household appliances maker Gorenje.
The government hopes that euro membership will boost tourism and foreign investment.
Hopefully good news for Slovenia, and rather pathetic that the UK is still (and for the foreseeable future) outside the Eurozone.
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