EU finance ministers on Tuesday deemed Slovakia ready to adopt the euro next year, clearing the former communist country's path to the shared currency club, officials said.
  
The European Commission and the European Central Bank had said last month that Slovakia was meeting the tough economic criteria for joining the eurozone.
  
Their blessing lifted the biggest obstacle to Slovakia's ambitions to become the 16th country to adopt the euro, on January 1, 2009.
  
"Slovakia has undergone for years a very impressive adjustment process," chairman of the Eurogroup of finance ministers, Jean-Claude Juncker, told journalists on the sidelines of a meeting in Luxembourg.
  
"So we are happy to see Slovakia join the euro area on January 1," he added.
  
"But we want to underline that being a member means that there are supplementary constraints as far as fiscal policy is concerned and as far as economic policy is concerned."
  
EU leaders are due to rubberstamp Slovakia's adoption of the euro at a June 19-20 summit in Brussels and then finance ministers have to give final formal backing in July.
  
Slovaks are divided about being the first central European country to adopt the euro, with many of the nearly 5.5-million strong population fearful the switch could drive up inflation.
  
The left-dominated government of Prime Minister Robert Fico has made euro adoption a flagship policy as part of its goal of breaking down barriers with the West.