The Lithuanian finance minister Dalia Grybauskaite today announced that the government had decided to apply to join the euro's exchange rate mechanism (ERM II) - the first formal step on the road to joining the single currency.
Vilnius is the first of the future EU countries to take this step and it would allow the Baltic state to join the euro as early as mid-2006 - the earliest theoretical date.
But first it needs to pass other hurdles.
The currency - the Litas - first n...
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