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Leonard Orban : Romania does not meet the majority of criteria for accession to the euro zone

The presidential adviser Leonard Orban stated on Wednesday that at present Romania is not at the stage to meet the majority of the criteria necessary to access the euro zone and appreciated that 2015 as objective regarding the euro had as motivation the continuation of the reform.

« As regards Romania, at present it is clear that – if we evaluate the meeting of criteria – we are not at the point to have met most of them. We are quite far at certain areas. Besides the technical criteria, I think that the most important criterion is that of convergence and here things must be improved significantly. It is about the continuation of the structural reforms – essential thing if we want to access the euro zone, but including modernisation, competitive basis for the Romanian economy » Leonard Orban said, at a round table with the theme « euro adoption in 2015 : benefits and vulnerabilities » organised by the EC representative to Bucharest.

Orban said that the decision to establish as objective accession to euro zone in 2015 had as a reason the necessity to continue the reforms. « Of course there have been debates on the date. Why did we keep this date ? It was not good to assume a later date ? Or debates of the kind that it is hard to reach this objective. There have been several points of view. I think the decision to have been taken had as a basis the necessary objective of continuation of reforms, modernisation of the Romanian economy, especially as in certain contexts – including electoral contexts – there is the temptation to postpone or to block the reforms » the former European commissionaire said.

He underlined that, after all, it is in everybody’s interest to « have the reforms continue, even if the 2015 objective is difficult to reach ». « If we don’t increase competitivity, real converge, we will have to suffer. Each citizen of Romania will be affected by the lack or slowing down of such structural reforms » Leonard Orban said.
Orban mentioned,on the other hand, that accession to euro zone will bring, besides benefits, certain problems and limitations for the Romanian economy. Among benefits, Orban mentioned Romania’s situation « in the area of the nucleus of the European decision process ».

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