Government gives up plans to join euro in 2015

Government gives up plans to join the euro zone in January 2015, a deadline announced regularly in previous years and advanced just the plan to join ERM II, the European mechanism of exchange rates in the 2013 – 2014 interval, a document obtained by news agency Mediafax which the Executive plans to send to the European Commission reads.

The estimated time to join EMR II was introduced in the convergence program for 2011 – 2014. The document does not contain any mention that Romania plans to join the euro zone in January 2015 and thus adopt the euro. Entering ERM II, the European mechanism of exchange rates is a pre step for joining the euro zone.

Before joining the euro, a country needs to respect economic criteria included in the Maastricht Treaty: to be part of ERM II for two years and to have the national currency fluctuate in a plus minus 15% interval to the euro. Several officials including President Basescu and the Romanian National Central Bank governor Mugur Isarescu advanced the possibility of postponing the adoption of the euro in 2015.