euro area

…for Estonia to join the euro zone in 2011. Ansip, his personal popularity slipping, stepped down in February 2014. He was succeeded as prime minister by Taavi Rõivas, who formed a coalition government with the centre-left Social Democratic Party. In foreign affairs, the country sought to improve its often tense…

…was officially admitted to the euro zone. Despite large-scale protests, Simitis engineered passage in 2002 of a law that overhauled the country’s social security and pension systems. His second term was also dominated by efforts to resolve the longstanding dispute with Turkey over the status of Cyprus. Simitis retired as…

The euro zone now includes 21 countries. In addition to the original 11, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, and Slovenia have since joined, and Bulgaria became the newest member today—January 1, 2026. For a currency that began its life as a software update,…

…Lithuania’s application to join the euro zone because of the country’s high inflation. The ailing economy spurred violent protests in the capital, some of the worst since 1991. Running as an independent with the promise of change, Dalia Grybauskaitė, the EU budget commissioner, won the May 2009 presidential election with…

…of the krona with the euro, which voters overwhelmingly rejected. That same month the public stabbing of Anna Lindh, the popular minister of foreign affairs, shocked Swedes and again raised questions about the price of an open and egalitarian society.

…countries are known as the euro area, euroland, or the eurozone.