From Sunday, you can only pay in euros in Croatia – news from Debrecen, news from Debrecen | Debrecen and Hajdú-Bihar county news
From Sunday, you can only pay in euros in Croatia
Croatia joined the euro zone on January 1st, and the two transition periods have ended, and from Sunday, you can only pay in euros in the country, wrote the Croatian daily Vecernji List.
Based on the practice of the countries that introduced the euro as their currency, the Croatian National Bank (HNB) expects that citizens will exchange 1.1 billion pieces of metal in national circulation and 500 million HUF banknotes in the period specified for this purpose.
They added: the weight of the kuna coins is equivalent to the weight of 124 trams in Zagreb, i.e. 5,600 tons, while the banknotes, if stacked, would form a column fifty kilometers high, which is six times higher than Mount Everest.
So far, 2,600 tons of the coins have arrived, and they have been piled up in a warehouse of the Croatian army designed for this purpose, where they will be stored for 54 months.
It is then crushed and used in the construction industry as a secondary raw material.
The banknote is kept in the HNB’s safe, and destruction takes place continuously under strict security conditions. The cut banknotes are mixed with paper and cardboard waste and baled, then sold to companies that reuse them as raw materials in paper production.
Until the end of 2023, banks and other financial institutions will exchange the kuna free of charge at the predetermined exchange rate, after which it can only be exchanged at the central bank. Banknotes can be redeemed indefinitely, but metal money only for the next three years.
In July 2020, the European Central Bank (ECB) included Croatia’s currency in the ERM-2 exchange rate mechanism, which is considered the “hallway” of the euro zone.
The Eurogroup, the council that uses the euro, agreed in mid-June last year that Croatia meets all the conditions necessary for the introduction of the euro. With the adoption of the necessary legislation, the process was completed by the end of the year, as a result of which Croatia could become the 20th member of the eurozone on January 1st. The Council of Finance Ministers of the member countries (Ecofin) set the exchange rate between the euro and the Croatian kuna at 7.53450 kuna for 1 euro.