Eurogroup, the club of finance ministers from 19 EU countries which are part of the euro zone, endorsed on Thursday an earlier recommendation from the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) to allow Croatia join the euro zone in January 2023.

“Ministers agreed with the European Commission’s and the European Central Bank’s positive assessment of Croatia’s fulfillment of convergence criteria. The recommendation proposes that Croatia should introduce the euro on 1 January 2023,” the press release published by the Eurogroup said.

The move is one of the steps in the run up to an EU Council meeting later in June, which will formally green-light Croatia’s bid to join the euro zone. In July, the fixed exchange rate against the euro is expected to be set, six months before the official adoption of the euro on the first day of 2023, nearly a decade after Croatia’s membership in the EU in July 2013.

The move means that Croatia’s current currency, the kuna,will be consigned to history after nearly three decades of use, having been introduced in May 1994. Croatia will also become the first new member of the euro zone in eight years, after Lithuania joined the bloc in 2015.

“I am very pleased to announce that the Eurogroup agreed today that Croatia fulfills all the necessary conditions to adopt the euro. This is a crucial step on Croatia’s path to become the 20th member of our euro area and a strong signal for European integration. I want to pay particular tribute to the Croatian government for its commitment and hard work to achieve this result over the past few years, in particularly challenging circumstances,” Ireland’s Finance Minister and President of the Eurogroup, Paschal Donohoe, was cited as saying.