Latvia becomes 18th country to adopt the euro

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Latvia celebrated the new year as the 18th member of the eurozone, which for all its dents and bruises still represents stability and security to the Baltic country’s leaders.

The euro became Latvia’s official currency after midnight local time yesterday (Dec 31) as New Year’s rockets exploded in the skies over the capital, Riga.

After joining NATO and the European Union in 2004, entering the eurozone was seen as a natural step for Latvia’s political leadership, deepening the Western integration they have sought since Latvia and its Baltic neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, broke away from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s.

European leaders hailed Latvia’s entry as a boost for the currency bloc, even though the relatively poor country of only 2 million people is a tiny part of the eurozone economy.

Some experts have expressed concern about Latvia’s reputation as a haven for suspicious money from the East, just nine months after the eurozone had to rescue Cyprus, a similarly tiny member state that also specialized in attracting huge deposits from Russia.