Estonia woke up to both a New Year and a new currency on Saturday as it became the first former Soviet state to adopt the euro at midnight and the 17th member of the eurozone, a bloc plagued by debt woes.
As a spectacular fireworks show lit up the sky over Tallinn, the 2004 EU entrant — which broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 — bade a reluctant farewell to its kroon, adopted in 1992 to replace the Soviet ruble.
At the stroke of midnight, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip symbolically withdrew a crisp new euro banknote from a bank machine at the national opera as onlookers braved subzero temperatures.
“That’s one small step for the eurozone and one giant leap for Estonia,” Ansip said.
“Estonia is the poorest country in the eurozone, so we have a lot of things to do also now after the goal of reaching the eurozone has been accomplished,” he added.
Joblessness shot up to almost 20 percent last year in the country of 1.3 million inhabitants as Estonia’s economy struggled to recover from a recession that saw GDP shrink by about 14 percent.
GDP is expected to have expanded by 2.5 percent last year and is forecast at 4.2 percent growth this year, according to Estonia’s central bank.
Vendors who opened their stalls on New Year’s Day in a festive seasonal market in central Tallinn told reporters a majority of their customers were already using crisp new euros.
“I opened up shop at 9am and we are already getting paid mostly in euros,” said Jaanus Oidsalu, 32, selling candles, mulled wine and cookies.
However, while Ansip’s government has championed the switch to the euro as economic good sense despite the eurozone’s debt turmoil, it has received a muted welcome among average Estonians.
Most surveys put support for Estonia’s entry into the crisis-hit eurozone at about 50 percent, with almost 40 percent opposed.
However, Ansip’s government has long insisted euro adoption will build investor confidence and be a boon for businesses as 80 percent of Estonia’s trade is within the 27-nation EU.
Opponents say that Estonia’s timing could not be worse with the euro under threat after bailouts in Greece and Ireland and concerns about Portugal and Spain.
“Estonia is like a passenger that got the last ticket for the Titanic,” said Anti Poolamets, the euroskeptic head of the “Save the Kroon” campaign.
Pollsters also flag up concerns over price hikes and simple nostalgia for the kroon.
For the past 19 years, the kroon has carried much more than just monetary value for Estonians and was seen as a tangible sign of the success of the country’s patient postwar struggle for independence from the Soviet Union.
“When we switched from rubles to our own kroon currency, I cried like most Estonians that day. There are no such emotions now, just a neutral feeling,” Sirje Kaart, 46, told reporters as she withdrew her first euro banknote.
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