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Romania sets 2024 as firm euro adoption deadline
Iulian Ernst in Bucharest January
Romania’s government will soon send to the European Union (EU) the documents with the country’s plan for the adoption of the euro by 2024, Prime Minister Viorica Dancila announced on January 30. The central bank’s deputy governor Florin Georges- cu backed the idea.
2024 is not an ambitious deadline. Roma- nia has repeatedly postponed the dead- line at times when it was better prepared in terms of nominal convergence criteria.
The national committee set up in early 2018 for drafting a strategy and a plan for the euro adoption have submitted their reports, and the government is cur- rently reviewing them for endorsement, Dancila added.
In related news, Georgescu argued at
a conference in favour of adopting the European single currency. This will bring people more wealth and will support sus- tainable economic recovery, he stated.
The central bank has constantly been cautious on euro adoption, stressing the
need to first reach a certain degree of real convergence, including a GDP per capita of at least two-thirds of the Euro- zone average. Premature euro adoption would generate major shocks and the
common currency, with its currency, the Bulgarian lev, pegged to the euro, low inflation and healthy public finances. However, the EU has demanded that Bul- garia also check its banking system due to
“Romania has repeatedly postponed the deadline at times when it was better prepared in terms of nominal convergence criteria”
deterioration of the standard of living, has been the central bank’s dominant rhetoric over the past years.
Among other EU member states from the Central and Southeast Europe regions, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic states have already adopted the European single currency.
Romania's neighbour Bulgaria has applied for membership in Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM2) and the European banking union and hopes to get a green light in July 2019. The country meets the nominal criteria to adopt the European
suspicions that some locally-owned banks are not stable enough.
European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said on January 8 that Bulgaria can join the eurozone in 2022 if the country gets the green light to enter the ERM2 later this year.
Meanwhile, the Croatian government has announced plans to join the ERM II in 2020 as a step towards joining the euro- zone. The exchange rate at which Croatia will enter the ERM II is expected to be known this year, central bank governor Boris Vujcic indicated in November.
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Investors split over Romanian Black Sea projects in “illiberal” climate
bne IntelliNews
International oil and gas companies are divided over whether to push ahead with plans to develop offshore fields in the Romanian segment of the Black Sea after the government passed tighter regulations at the end of last year.
Rules approved in Bucharest include the manda- tory sale of 50% of the output on the local market
Poland’s new “Spring” party hopes to end two-party stalemate
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
Robert Biedron, the openly gay Polish politician that rose to nationwide prominence by sensa- tionally becoming mayor of the seaside town of Slupsk a few years ago, has decided to challenge the political status quo in Poland by forming
a new liberal-left party Wiosna (Spring).
Biedron held the inaugural convention of the new
at a regulated price. Moreover, the so-called “tax on greed” sets a cap on the price gas companies charge households, and a 3% turnover tax for energy and telecoms companies.
Austrian group OMV and Romania’s largest oil and
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party in Warsaw on February 3 to the immense interest of all media. The main message Biedron delivered to a crowd of an estimated 6,000 in Warsaw’s Torwar sports hall and – possibly – hundreds of thousands in front of TV screens and on social media was his intention to break Po-
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