{"id":32891,"date":"2023-01-02T12:02:32","date_gmt":"2023-01-02T06:32:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=32891"},"modified":"2025-04-19T16:57:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T11:27:28","slug":"eurozone-and-schengen-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/eurozone-and-schengen-area\/","title":{"rendered":"Eurozone and Schengen Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What Is the Eurozone?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What are the requirements for joining the eurozone?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is Schengen area?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Why in news?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Croatia adopted the European Union\u2019s common currency, the euro, and joined the Schengen Area, Europe\u2019s visa-free travel area, on January 1.<\/li>\n<li>With this, Croatia became the fully integrated member of EU. The country had joined the EU in 2013.\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>It was the last time a country was admitted as a new member nation of EU.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What Is the Eurozone?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>All European Union Member States are part of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and coordinate their economic policy-making to support the economic aims of the EU.<\/li>\n<li>However, a number of Member States have taken a step further by <u>replacing their national currencies with the single currency \u2013 the euro<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>These Member States form the euro area, also known as eurozone.<\/li>\n<li>In other words, it is a <strong>geographic and economic region<\/strong> that consists of all the European Union countries that have <u>fully incorporated the euro as their national currency<\/u>.<\/li>\n<li>As of January 2023, the <strong>eurozone consists of 20 countries<\/strong> in the European Union (EU):\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the requirements for joining the eurozone?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In order to join the eurozone and use the euro as their currency, EU nations must meet certain criteria consisting of four macroeconomic indicators that focus on:\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Price stability<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Sound and sustainable public finances<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>The durability of convergence<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Exchange rate stability<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is Schengen area?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Schengen Area signifies a zone where 27 European countries, abolished their internal borders, for the free and unrestricted movement of people.\n<ul>\n<li><u>Croatia became the 27<\/u><sup><u>th<\/u><\/sup><u> nation in the passport free Schengen zone<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>Member of this area include<\/strong>: 23 of the 27 EU member states and all members of the European Free Trade Association (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland).<\/li>\n<li>Being part of this area means that countries:\n<ul>\n<li>do not carry out checks at their internal borders, except in cases of specific threats;<\/li>\n<li>carry out harmonised controls at their external borders, based on clearly defined criteria.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>News Summary<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>On January 1, 2023, Croatia switched to the shared European currency, the euro, and removed dozens of border checkpoints to join the world\u2019s largest passport-free travel area.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How will this move help Croatia?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Joining Europe&#8217;s ID-check-free Schengen zone means Croats will now be able to roam its 27 member countries without passports for work or leisure.<\/li>\n<li>Adopting the euro will offer Croatia the benefits stemming from deeper financial ties with the currency\u2019s 19 other users and with the European Central Bank.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>It will also make traveling and doing business easier, removing the hassle of currency exchange for Croats going abroad and for tens of thousands of tourists.<\/li>\n<li>Experts also believe that the adoption of the euro will help protect Croatia\u2019s economy at a time when inflation has been soaring globally due to Russia-Ukraine war.<\/li>\n<li>It will also provide a boost to tourism industry, which accounts for 20% of the country\u2019s GDP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What are the challenges?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The country is entering the eurozone at a time when the bloc itself is in turmoil as the European Central Bank (ECB) tries to tame inflation.<\/li>\n<li>Before this, ECB was busy in rekindling the growth which was exceptionally low following the 2008 financial crisis.<\/li>\n<li>Also, Croatia will have to apply strict border control on its eastern frontier with non-EU neighbours.\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>The fight against illegal migration remains the key challenge in guarding the EU\u2019s longest external land border at 1350 km.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1)\u00a0<\/strong><strong>What is eurozone?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Eurozone is a <strong>geographic and economic region<\/strong> that consists of all the European Union countries that have fully incorporated the euro as their national currency.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong><strong>\u00a0What is Schengen area?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Schengen Area signifies a zone where 27 European countries, abolished their internal borders, for the free and unrestricted movement of people.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/news\/international\/croatia-rings-in-new-year-as-fully-integrated-eu-member\/article66326465.ece\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Croatia rings in New Year as fully integrated EU member<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 <strong>|<\/strong>\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.consilium.europa.eu\/en\/policies\/schengen-area\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>European Council of the European Union<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 <strong>|<\/strong>\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/economy-finance.ec.europa.eu\/euro\/what-euro-area_en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>European Commission<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Eurozone is a region in which all the countries have adopted the euro as their national currency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32893,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32891","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32891\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}