FinMin: Poland not yet ready for euro

Finance Minister Mateusz Szczurek Photo: PR/Wojciech Kusiński

The comment comes ahead of neighbouring Lithuania’s adoption of the common currency on 1 January 2015.

Szczurek told Polish Radio on Wednesday that while the euro is good news for Lithuania’s economy, this is not necessarily so for Poland.

“It is obvious that the advantages and the cost of introducing the common currency in a country such as Lithuania, whose currency has been pegged to the euro for over a decade, are completely different than for such a diverse country as Poland which has a larger internal market,” Szczurek said.

Poland’s finance minister also underlined that under his wing, the ministry is continuing plans on adopting the common currency, saying that “the discussion on joining the euro in Poland should continue”.

“We don’t want to pretend that this issue or challenge doesn’t exist,” Szczurek said, “but the conditions, which have been laid out by the prime minister and which we have now been talking about for a long time, such as stability in the eurozone and ongoing talks on Poland’s eventual entry, must be met before we can give any date for euro adoption”.

Lithuania joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which pegged the Litas with the euro, in June 2004, less than two months after joining the EU along with Poland and a number of other central European countries.

Poland’s neighbour fulfilled all the so-called convergence criteria in the first months of 2014, with the European Parliament and EU Council of Ministers rubberstamping Lithuania’s entry in July.

The country becomes the 19th member of the common currency and the last of the Baltic States to adopt the euro, following Latvia in 2014 and Estonia in 2011. (jb)