Euro adoption: The euro can wait

Reducing the national debt, cutting taxes, lowering labor costs and maintaining macroeconomic stability are the new government's key priorities, and they take precedence over adoption of the single European currency, the new Finance Minister, Jacek Rostowski, said at a recent debate in the Sejm.

That doesn't mean euro adoption has been shelved entirely. However, "introduction of the euro in Poland will take longer than one [parliamentary] term," said Rostowski in his first speech to the parliament.

The Minister also declared that the government would reduce public debt to between 44 and 41 percent of GDP by 2011. Poland's public debt currently stands at over 47 percent of GDP.

The message sent by the government seems contradictory compared to their previous declarations on speeding up euro zone accession, Grzegorz Szczodrowski, an expert from the Sobieski Institute pointed out. Yet he said such a step needs to be carried out wisely and carefully.

"It is necessary to ensure greater macroeconomic stability," Szczodrowski told WBJ. Reducing the public debt and the budget deficit are the key tasks in his view.

The euro has been adopted by 13 EU member states. Cyprus and Malta are set to join the euro zone in January.

Szczodrowski said that setting a goal to reduce debt was a positive step. "If the public debt were decreased by that much it would be great," he said, stressing that such tightening of the budget might be an extremely hard task.

"The budget we have inherited is spending-oriented," he said, adding that rising inflation is also a serious challenge as it could soon exceed three percent.