Latvia and the euro

At the start of 2005, the lats was pegged to the euro at Ls 0.702804 = €1, and Latvia joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM ll), four months later on 2 May 2005.

[2] Latvia's Treaty of Accession to the European Union (EU) obliged it to eventually adopt the euro.

"[5] In September 2012, Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis reiterated that "Latvia is on track for 2014 and permission to join would be sought in 2013.

However, he was confident that Latvia was "fulfilling the Maastricht euro adoption criteria with a considerable reserve, therefore I don't see any basis on which this convergence report would be negative.

[16] Some members of Latvia's parliament, the Saeima, originally pushed for a referendum on euro adoption,[34] but Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis argued that a referendum is unnecessary because Latvians already voted in favour of their EU accession treaty in 2003, which binds them to adopt the euro as soon as the country is found to comply with all the convergence criteria.

These MPs stated that they would turn to the last remaining legal option to force a referendum: gathering a petition of at least 30,000 electoral signatories.

[37] Latvia officially requested an extraordinary convergence report to assess their readiness for euro adoption on 4 March 2013.

[47] On 4 March 2013, the Latvian Ministry of Justice clarified that while the official name of the currency for all financial and legal documents shall be "euro", the public will continue to be able to use the Latvian name "eiro", furthermore it is required to write "euro" in italics indicating the word is in a foreign language.