Q Lithuania is introducing the euro from January 1,2015. How have you prepared for this? A Almost immediately after the introduction of the litas in 1993, we pegged it to the dollar. For such a small country, it is too luxurious to have our own monetary policy. We are an open economy, we are exporting and importing a lot, so we are dependent on the [economic health] of our counterparts, and one of our main partners in trade exchange is the eurozone. Lithuania started thinking about joining the euro-zone as early as 2002. It was in February 2002 that we pegged our currency to the euro. From that time onwards, we were making efforts to adjust our economy to improve our fiscal stance to be compliant with the level of development of eurozone member states. When we joined the EU in 2004, we joined the exchange rate mechanism too, which is a necessary condition to introduce the euro.
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