“Lithuania congratulates Latvia on future membership in the euro zone both as the country holding the European Council presidency and as a neighbor. We are happy that structural reforms let that country overcome economic difficulties and we believe that its membership in the euro zone will give fresh impetus to the entire Baltic region,” he said in a press release on Tuesday.
In line with the final decision adopted by the Community’s finance chiefs earlier on Tuesday, Latvia will become the 18th member of the single currency bloc on January 1, 2014.
Lithuania seeks to adopt the euro a year later, in 2015.
