ZAGREB (Reuters – Croatia’s eurosceptic right-wing Hrvatski Suverenisti party admitted Tuesday that it failed to stop a planned referendum on the adoption of the euro.

Andrej Plenkovic, Prime Minister of the centre-right party, hopes to receive a positive signal from the Euro Zone by June so that the country can adopt the euro starting January 2023. According to a July opinion poll, more than 60% of Croatian voters support the adoption of the common currency.

Marijan Pavlicek (a leader Hrvatski Suverenisti) stated at a press conference that party members who had collected signatures to support a referendum last month were 34,000 less than the required 370,000 or 10%.

“But, it is still a respectable number and the government should never ignore… Croatia isn’t ready for the Euro yet.”

According to the government, adopting the euro will remove risk from currency, lower interest rates and improve credit ratings, which would open up the door for greater investment.

For the government and central bank, the key task is to control inflation and to limit budgetary spending in order to meet nominal macroeconomic criteria to join the euro area. In October, Croatia had an annual inflation of 3.8%.

Eurosceptics claim that the economy is not strong enough to accept the euro and would lead to price increases.

Fitch raised Croatia’s credit rating last week to “BBB” with a positive outlook. They said that they expect Croatia to be ready to accept the euro by 2023.