Thirdly, the pressure being put on new Member States to enter the eurozone should be ended.

Countries that weren't ready entered the eurozone.

A few days later, on 5 April 2008, Slovakia officially applied to enter the eurozone.

Jacek Rostowski, whose country plans to enter the eurozone in 2015, said:

It squanders an opportunity to let both parts of the island of Cyprus enter the eurozone.

After entering the eurozone, the Dutch had to give up their strong currency, and under the hugely unfavourable conditions of an undervalued exchange rate.

The first three countries, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia, originally stated that they wished to enter the eurozone in 2007.

Murkens reiterated the most widely held interpretation of the requirements for joining the European Union: that new accession states must also enter the eurozone.

The objectives I have mentioned in relation to when Members States wish to enter the eurozone, are dates defined by those States themselves.

( Estonia entered the eurozone on 1 January 2011, i.e. after the creation of the European Financial Stability Facility in 2010).

Its debts amounted to about 130% of the GDP in 1992 and were reduced to about 99% in 2001 when Belgium entered the Eurozone.

I think that dual price display should be obligatory not only for six months before entering the eurozone but also for at least one year after adopting the euro.

Enter the eurozone as a non-EU member and issue a distinct national variant of the euro-just as Monaco and the Vatican have done.

The Finance Minister Dominik Radziwill said on 10 July 2009 that Poland could enter the Eurozone in 2014, meeting the fiscal criteria in 2012.

During this debate, I very much want to emphasise once again that we must leave the door open to the three Member States that have chosen not to enter the eurozone immediately.

Absolute majorities are were in favour of entering the Eurozone (50% in favour, 43% opposed) and of a Common European Defence (66% in favour, 21% opposed).

This is the basis we need for lasting success, and we will not have wasted the benefits of our hard work or the sacrifices many countries have made in order to be able to enter the eurozone.

On 1 January 2008, the country entered the eurozone and adopted the euro as its official currency, replacing the Cypriot pound at an irrevocable fixed exchange rate of CYP 0.585274 per EUR 1.00.

Reluctant to abandon its ambitions to enter the Eurozone, the government is unable to resort to the palliative of devaluation and has had to accept a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, which has imposed punishing budgetary conditions.

This led to claims that Greece (similar claims have been made about other European countries like Italy) had not actually met all five accession criteria, and the common perception that Greece entered the Eurozone through "falsified" deficit numbers.

Already the next objective is to enter the eurozone, an objective that, some years ago, seemed difficult when inflation was rather high, but that now seems attainable within a reasonable time, given that, at the end of 2003, inflation fell, settling at between 4% and 5%.

Independently of this process, we in the Commission of course maintain regular contacts with all of the States intending to enter the eurozone, we monitor them very closely and we cooperate with them in relation to the practical preparations for this important decision.

The sufficient condition is that the assessments of both the Commission and the European Central Bank, of compliance with the criteria laid down in the Treaty, indicate that the Member States that wish to enter the eurozone have indeed complied with those criteria.