History of the euro succeeding the EMCF, under Maastricht. It was created as the forerunner to the European Central Bank. It met for the first time on 12 January under its first president, Alexandre Lamfalussy. After much disagreement, in December 1995 the name "euro" was adopted for the new currency (replacing the name "Ecu" used for the previous accounting currency), on the suggestion of then-German finance minister Theo Waigel. They also agreed on the date 1 January 1999 for its launch. On 17 June 1997 the European Council decided in Amsterdam to adopt the Stability and Growth Pact, designed to ensure budgetary discipline after
Croatia and the euro Croatia and the euro Croatia's currency, the kuna, has used the euro (and prior to that one of the euro's major predecessors, the German mark or Deutschmark) as its main reference since its creation in 1994, and a long-held policy of the Croatian National Bank has been to keep the kuna's exchange rate with the euro within a relatively stable range. Croatia's EU membership obliges it to eventually join the eurozone, as such the country plans to join the European Monetary System, the pathway to euro adoption. Prior to Croatian entry to the EU on 1 July 2013, Boris Vujčić,