Poland stands steadfast by euro
PR dla Zagranicy
John Beauchamp
13.06.2011 12:15
In an interview given for London’s Financial Times, head of Poland’s central bank, Marek Belka has announced that Poland does not intend to scrap plans to join the European single currency despite troubles throughout the Eurozone.
Photo: Governor of the national bank, Marek Belka. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
Marek Belka, head of the National Bank of Poland. Photo: PAP/Radek Pietruszka
“It is a matter of prime national importance for [Poland],” Belka told the FT, adding that “joining the Eurozone [is a] strategic goal.”
While Marek Belka believes that Warsaw should not rush with entry to the single currency following the near economic collapse of Greece and other countries in the Eurozone, Poland should not put off its plans to enter the euro.
“Any crisis of the euro is a crisis of European integration, and we bet on European integration from the first months of the post-transformation era [after the fall of communism in 1989],” Belka told the FT.
Poland still has a way to go before joining the euro. The interest rate currently stands at 4.5 percent, having been raised four times in 2011, and is far above the Maastricht criteria for joining the common currency, which allow for a 1 percent rate of inflation.
Additionally, the budget deficit stood at 7.9 percent of GDP in 2010, although the Finance Ministry hopes to bring that down to 2.9 percent in 2012, just below the 3 percent set by the Maastricht criteria. (jb)