Sydney Morning Herald: At midnight on New Year’s Eve, Estonia abandoned its post-Soviet currency, the kroon, in favour of the euro – its last remaining big policy goal since securing membership of the EU and NATO in 2004. But with the future of the European common currency seeming less certain, some are inclined to see it as a pyrrhic victory.The bittersweet nature of the moment was not completely concealed by New Year’s festivities or the pageantry of Tallinn becoming European Capital of Culture 2011.
”The kroon just turned 18 last summer,” says Tea, a nursery school teacher in Tallinn. ”Like a youth, there’s a feeling that it should have a long life ahead of it.”
A December poll by the Estonian Institute of Economic Research showed only 25 per cent supported the euro. Nostalgia for the outgoing currency is already in the air, although the kroon remains in parallel circulation for 14 days after the changeover.
The crisis of confidence in the euro has inspired some to protest. On December 28, one of Tallinn’s main squares was papered with posters of the euro as a sinking ship. Read more at the Sydney Morning Herald…..
