No easy way in
The European Commission will only admit new EU member states to the eurozone if they fully meet all the entry criteria.
All of the union's 10 new member states plan to adopt the single currency by 2010 but many of them still do not meet the bloc's entry conditions regarding inflation rates or budget-deficit levels.
"The Commission intends to make proposals on new euro entries only if the economic convergence criteria are strictly adhered to," said the EU Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia.
The criteria limit inflation in a candidate country to no more than 1.5 percentage points above the average of the best three eurozone members and restrict the budget deficit to no more than three percent of gross domestic product.
The level of public debt cannot be higher than 60 percent of GDP and the candidate country's currency should remain within a plus-or-minus 15 percent band around a parity rate for two years before entry to show currency stability in the Exchange Rate Mechanism 2.
Yields of long-term bonds issued by the eurozone candidate may not exceed two percentage points above the average of the three best performing zone members in terms of price stability.
The largest new EU member states - Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia - have budget deficits that are too large and, unlike the other countries, have not yet joined the ERM 2 - the 'antechamber' to the euro.
The Commission has already told Lithuania not to count on leniency regarding inflation after Vilnius said it might ask the EU to ease the rules because of the impact of oil prices. (Reuters)
