Non-eurozone countries using the euro

Factual Questions
1

I see that the newly independent nation of Macedonia has the euro as its official currency, despite not being a member of the EU, let alone the eurozone.

This raises a few (probably naive) questions.

  1. Is the European Central Bank quite happy about this? It seems odd that they specify so many criteria for a country to meet before it can join the eurozone, but Macedonia can just say “Stuff it, we’ll use the euro anyway.”

  2. Where does Macedonia get its euro banknotes and coins from? Obviously it can’t print them itself. Does the government just buy them on the open market? And if so, what do they buy them with? :stuck_out_tongue:

  3. Does the ECB have to adjust its production of euros to take into account usage by non-eurozone countries?

These questions may be elementary, but economics is something of a black art in my eyes…

2

And of course, when I wrote “Macedonia” I actually meant Montenegro :smack:

3

And, of course, when I messed up that bold tag, I actually… oh, forget it :wally

4

Wikipedia calls using a currency not your own dollarization and lists a bunch of countries that do this. As for how you get the currency, I think you can order it up from a bank that deals in euros. The US dollar is not official currency in Russia, but I believe regular shipments are made of thousands of $100 bills. As for whether the US or the European Central Bank care, I think they’d be happy, particularly if the money never made it back, because at that point they’ve made money on the seignorage.