Poland should be ready to introduce the euro currency in 2011, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk following his meeting with the Finance Minister, head of the National Bank of Poland and members of the Monetary Policy Council.
Danuta Isler reports
According to PM Donald Tusk,2011 should be the year when Poland fulfills all the criteria and is positively evaluated by the European Commission. He added that the government, the Monetary Policy Council and National Bank of Poland are ready to cooperate closely in order to achieve that goal. Next year, following political consultations, a detailed schedule of the preparations is to be drafted. He reiterated this message during his recent visit to Sweden: 'We envisage that this timetable is ambitious but possible to implement and it means the necessity to finish all our work by the first half of 2011 in order for the European Commission, if everything goes along this scenario, to make a decision on Poland joining the eurozone in the year 2011'.
The European Commission welcomed the declaration of the Polish government, but would not comment on the date mentioned by PM Tusk. Amelia Torres, the spokeswoman of the EC explains: 'Having a target date is good in order to focus the markets, the economications, the society at large. It is also a signal in terms of the delivery of the macroeconomic policies, especially at this time of perturbed and uncertain times'.
As expected, members of opposition parties expressed skepticism for the declaration. Joachim Brudzinski from the Law and Justice (PiS) said that it is completely unrealistic to instate the single currency inthis ocuntry by 2011. The leftist Social Democratic Party (SLD) supported the goal, however, as did the junior coalition member, the Polish Peasant's Party (PSL) which added conditional support for the move. Speaking unofficially, Polish experts suspect that in practice, euro will be introduced at the beginning of the year 2012.
MEP Professor Dariusz Rosati, a former member of Poland's Monetary Policy Council agrees with that view: 'Unfortunately, the project given by the PM is not possible to implement by the date for a few simple reasons. Both the procedures required while introducing the common currency and the necessity to change the legal regulations in Poland, including amending the Constitution, mean that even if Poland wanted to get to work very quickly, as of today, then the most plausible time for the introduction of the euro will be the begining of 2012'.
According to an opinion poll by TNS OBOP pollsters, 52 percent of Poles want the European single currency to be introduced in this country, though some 32 percent think that three years is not enough time for the economy to be ready to ditch the zloty.
Witold Orłowski, a former economic advisor of Poland's president and expert of Pricewaterhouse Coopers says Poland should join the euro zone relatively soon because of the benefits it may bring to the country: 'It is better to have a stronger and more solid currency than a smaller, weaker and more volatile currency. In my view Poland is ready to fulfill all those criteria. What I am afraid of is that in all this discussion political arguments seem to be stronger than economic ones. A lot of people in Poland, especially older people are simply afraid of the introduction of the euro exactly as they were afiraid of Poland's accession to the European Union and a lot of parties would like to capitalize on this feeling. Let me remind you that Poland has already accepted the fact that euro will replace zloty when it signed the EU Accession Treaty. Now the point is when to do it'.
Out of the ten former communist countries which became EU members in 2004 only Slovenia is a member of the euro zone. As of January 2009 the currency will also be adopted by Slovakia.