Stolojan: Slight chances of adopting the euro in 2015

“The unions want to strike. Fine. Let them strike. But let the unions not forget one thing: that we have a €20 billion agreement, of which we have drawn 6. If we go against this agreement, as of tomorrow, the exchange rate will take a dive. We have a new evaluation due in fall. No one should think that the central bank will use Romania’s foreign currency reserves to maintain structural balance,” said Stolojan for The Money Channel.

The PDL official believes that not abiding by the agreement will lead to problems financing the budget deficit (revised in August to 7.3 percent of gross domestic product). The government has already asked to use the €1.75 bln of the second and third tranches for financing this deficit. The size of the deficit, whose percentage has already risen six times in five years, poses additional problems in terms of access to the euro zone on 1 January 2015: “Chances are slight for 2015. Let us not forget that we are presently subject to an excessive deficit procedure, not because of the crisis, but because of 2008, and we have until 2011 to reach 3 percent,” added Stolojan.