Brussels criticizes budget deficit and plans to adopt Euro

The bitter words were mostly concentrated on the budget deficit as the Finance Ministry withdrew from its original plan to reduce the level of the deficit to 1.5% of GDP by 2007 and replaced it with a new higher figure of 2.2%. However, to this figure one needs to add 1.5% GDP for open pension funds which makes a budget deficit total of 3.7% GDP in 2007 and this is 0.7% more than the accepted limit for countries wanting to enter the Eurozone. As a result this is likely to delay Poland's plans to switch to the Euro, which was initially scheduled for 2009. The officials also underlined that the government's plan does not offer any specific steps to secure a long-term balance of public finances. (Gazeta Wyborcza p. 19) M.G.