The long, bumpy road to the eurozone
The possibility that Poland's entry into the eurozone will be delayed no longer comes as a surprise to many, since the government has on several occasions hinted that the country will not be ready to take on the euro in 2009. Furthermore, President Lech Kaczyński hinted that a referendum on the issue could be held in 2010.
Experts in Poland claim that the euro is a long way off regardless of the nation's reluctance. "If we wanted to join the eurozone soon, even by 2010 it would be impossible," Professor Witold Orłowski, the former economic advisor to ex-President Aleksander Kwaniewski and current expert for PricewaterhouseCoopers told WBJ.
Jarosław Pietras, a former Minister for European Affairs and former Secretary of State in the Finance Ministry, explained that eurozone countries not only want to see potential candidates meet the Maastricht criteria, but they also want to be sure that the economic requirements can be sustained. But he adds that politics can also play an important role. "Greece did not meet the criteria before or even after it adopted the euro," he says.
"It will be hard to get in, because there is no will to accept new members," Orłowski says. Even if Poland meets all the criteria, Orłowski claims, it will be judged very harshly and the standards set for the potential new eurozone countries will be very rigorous. "We will have to break through a barrier of inaccessibility," he says. Orłowski claims that meeting the harsh criteria would require a lot of hard work as well as an additional year or two.
