The Bucharest government wants to push the adoption of the euro to 2026, exactly three years ahead of what was envisaged in the current single currency transition plan. Finance Minister Adrian Caciu explained this, stating that it is necessary to fully meet the objectives of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (Pnrr) to be successful. According to the minister, the full implementation of the plan will allow the country to more efficiently absorb the European funds allocated to it and, through these interventions, streamline its public finances to meet the Maastricht criteria for access to the euro. . Before joining the eurozone, every European country must achieve a certain degree of economic stability by meeting strict nominal and public finance criteria.
Basically, a given country’s national economy must demonstrate that it has the ability to keep inflation on the line by pegging inflation at no higher than 1.5 percentage points compared to the three best-performing European countries and the long-term interest rate. Bucharest failed to meet these criteria many times between 2008 and 2014 and proved to be more cautious on the evergreen side of public finances, except in 2010 when the country had its debt crisis. According to Maastricht, it was the public deficit that worsened after the pandemic crisis, the relationship between it and GDP cannot exceed 3%, but in the 2021-2022 two-year period this increased by over seven percentage points in Romania, as reported in Romania. Report on EU convergence last June.
The convergence in the Romanian National Bank’s forecasts will not occur before 2029, which is confirmed by the data available to the European Commission, which again rejected the Bucharest accounts in 2022. Adian Vasilescu, Advisor to the President of the National Bank of Romania, said the effort to anticipate participation was too great and at this point almost impossible to achieve. To the most skeptical, instead of possible progress, another delay beyond 2029 could be made. This would be the last of many, initially set for the country’s accession to the Eurozone in 2014, then delayed to 2019. After 2024, again due to the lack of real and nominal economic convergence to other European economies. The 2026 threshold is utopian for many, and the only maneuver that could bring the country’s economy closer to the euro target would be the launch of restrictive measures, a project that would help restore public finances but not quite so. means the undeniable impoverishment of the population, freed from the construction site and the satisfaction of Pnrr.
Source: Today IT
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
