Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Central Bank, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions. Fourteenth report on the practical preparations for the future enlargement of the euro area

Since the euro was adopted by Latvia on 1 January 2014, the euro area comprises 18 EU Member States. Following the Council Decision of 23 July 2014 concluding that Lithuania fulfils the necessary conditions for euro adoption, the euro area will have 19 members as of 1 January 2015.

Lithuania has less than six months to finalise its preparations for the changeover. This report assesses the state of play of the practical preparations for introducing the euro and the progress made in preparing the changeover-related communication campaign by mid-June 2014. It also provides a short overview on the results of the latest opinion poll on the state of public opinion on the euro.

Lithuania will be the seventh of the group of Member States which joined the EU in 2004 to adopt the single currency. Lithuania's original target date of 1 January 2007 envisaged in the National Euro Adoption Plan of 27 September 2005 had to be reconsidered following the Commission's conclusion on 16 May 2006 in its 2006 Convergence Report on Lithuania that, at that time, there should be no change in Lithuania's status as an EU Member State with a derogation.

The target date of 1 January 2015 ("€-day") has been determined by the Lithuanian Government in the new National Changeover Plan which was approved by the Government on 26 June 2013 and amended in December 2013 and in June 2014. The National Changeover Plan is supplemented by an Action Plan for the Implementation of the National Changeover Plan which was adopted on 4 December 2013.

EUR-Lex: COM(2014)489: Follow the progress of this report through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2014:489:FIN

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