Prime Minister Victor Ponta believes that January 1st, 2019 is "a pretty realistic goal" for Romania to join the Euro zone , after the authorities in Bucharest dropped the term originally advanced, 2015.
"There are two options here : either we take on the Polish model, which says that you do not set the year, but the priorities and try to do that the soonest, or take on a model that other countries have had, including Romania – we have had 2015 , and when you do not accomplish it, you lose your credibility, if you keep crying out wolf, when there is none... I think that - I do not know if we will set that in a document – but a goal like January 1, 2019 is a pretty realistic goal, "Ponta said at a television station, quoted by Mediafax.
He reminded that such a goal has to be set up on agreement with the Romanian National Bank and the business environment .
The Government has submitted to the European Commission a convergence program that, unlike the previous years, no longer includes a target for the adoption of the Euro currency.
Earlier this year, Prime Minister Ponta announced that Romania's entry into the Euro zone by 2015 was no longer a credible target, but the goal should not be abandoned, the horizon for the process completion would be around 2020.
The convergence programs sent to Brussels by the Romanian authorities have kept every time, the year 2015 as the target for adopting the Euro, by joining the ERM II mechanism in 2013 – 2014.