Romania will be ready to enter the euro zone when it will have a freeway to cross the Carpathian Mountains, said Romania’s National Bank’s (BNR) Governor Mugur Isarescu.

“Someone asked me when I see Romania joining the euro zone and I told him: when the first freeway will cross the Carpathians, about then,” Isarescu said in the press conference when presenting the inflation report for the first half of 2014.

He added: “You can’t develop other regions if you cross the Carpathians through serpentines, if I’m allowed to speak metaphorically. Bucharest can join the euro zone, about 2 million people, the size of a Baltic state, but it cannot be separated (from the rest of the country – e.n.).”

Romania has about five years to prepare for joining the euro zone as the Government set January 1, 2019, as target date for accession.

In order to be ready to adopt the euro as single currency, Romania must fulfill three quantitative criteria: e budgetary deficit of less than 3% of its GDP, a public debt of no more than 60% of GDP and an inflation rate that’s no more than 1.5% higher than the average inflation rate of the most efficient economies in the euro zone. Real convergence is also needed in terms of GDP per capita.

The full press conference and BNR's report on inflation can be found here.

editor@romania-insider.com