Romanians, together with Croats and Hungarians, still support the idea of adopting the single European currency whereas the Swedes and the Czechs continue to be skeptical about it, said Christine Gartner, senior economist within the European Central Bank.

She presented the conclusions of the “Convergence Report” for 2016.

In Romania, the majority of population is in favor of adopting the euro whereas in Bulgaria only half of the citizens support the idea, Gartner explained, reports local Agerpres.

Only Romania had a deadline for adopting the euro, namely mid-2019, but “it seems that plans have changed,” the ECB economist said.

“A new date will be announced when Romania will be ready to enter the Eurozone.”

Romania meets three of the five nominal criteria for joining the Eurozone, namely price stability, public finances, and interest rates. The European reference rate for inflation was set at 0.7%. In Romania, the inflation rate is below this level. The same applies to the other analyzed countries, except for Sweden.

Despite the low inflation rate, Romania should be aware of the risk of future inflationary pressures.

Another convergence criterion applies to the level of interest rates. The reference rate was set at 4%, and all the analyzed countries had interest rates below this level.

editor@romania-insider.com