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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Weekend Edition Top Stories Most Popular Photos Full Coverage Sitemap Estonia rings in 2011 as 17th eurozone member AFP - Sunday, January 2 Send IM Story Print TALLINN (AFP) - – Estonia woke up to both a New Year and a new currency Saturday as it became the first ex-Soviet state to adopt the euro at midnight and the 17th member of the eurozone, a bloc plagued by debt woes. As a spectacular fireworks show lit up the sky over Tallinn, the 2004 EU entrant -- which broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991 -- bade a reluctant farewell to its kroon, adopted in 1992 to replace the Soviet ruble. At the stroke of midnight, Estonia's centre-right Prime Minister Andrus Ansip symbolically withdrew a crisp new euro banknote from a bank machine at the national opera as onlookers braved subzero temperatures. "That's one small step for the eurozone and one giant leap for Estonia," Ansip said. "Estonia is the poorest country in the eurozone, so we have a lot of things to do also now after the goal of reaching the eurozone has been accomplished," he added. Joblessness shot up to nearly 20 percent last year in the country of 1.3 million inhabitants as Estonia's economy struggled to recover from a recession that saw GDP shrink by some 14 percent. GDP is expected to have expanded by 2.5 percent in 2010 and is forecast at 4.2 percent in 2011, according to Estonia's central bank. Vendors who opened their stalls on New Year's Day in a festive seasonal market in central Tallinn told AFP a majority of their customers were already using crisp new euros. "I opened up shop at 9:00 am and we are already getting paid mostly in euros," said Jaanus Oidsalu, 32, selling candles, mulled wine and cookies. But while Ansip's centre-right government has championed the switch to the euro as economic good sense despite the eurozone's debt turmoil, it has received a muted welcome among average Estonians. Most surveys put support for Estonia's entry into the crisis-hit eurozone at around 50 percent, with almost 40 percent opposed. But Ansip's government has long insisted euro adoption will build investor confidence and be a boon for businesses as 80 percent of Estonia's trade is within the 27-nation European Union. Opponents say that Estonia's timing could not be worse with the euro under threat after bailouts in Greece and Ireland and concerns about Portugal and Spain. "Estonia is like a passenger that got the last ticket for the Titanic," said Anti Poolamets, the eurosceptic head of the "Save the Kroon" campaign. Pollsters also flag up concerns over price hikes and simple nostalgia for the kroon. For the past 19 years the kroon has carried much more than just monetary value for Estonians and was seen as a tangible sign of the success of the country's patient post-war struggle for independence from the Soviet Union. "When we switched from rubles to our own kroon currency, I cried like most Estonians that day. There are no such emotions now, just a neutral feeling," Sirje Kaart, 46, told AFP as she withdrew her first euro banknote. Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves meanwhile highlighted the symbolism of becoming the eurozone's first ex-Soviet and third ex-communist member, after Slovenia in 2007 and Slovakia in 2009. "Joining the eurozone in January 2011 will mean arriving in Europe again," Ilves told AFP. Estonia entered the EU and NATO in 2004, and Europe's passport-free Schengen zone in 2007. The kroon has been pegged to foreign currencies from the start, first to the deutschmark and then, in 2002, to the then newborn euro. The rate of 15.6466 kroons to one euro has never changed. To avoid a frenzy, customers were able to swap kroons for euros commission-free since December 1, and will be able to use them alongside the euro for the first two weeks of January. Money deposited in accounts was automatically converted. Kroons will be exchangeable at selected commercial bank branches until the end of 2011, and at Estonia's central bank for an unlimited period. But the change has not come cheap for commercial banks already hammered by last year's deep recession. "The switch to the euro has cost commercial banks around 15 million euros (20 million dollars)," said Riho Unt, head of Estonian Banking Association. 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