Romania’s government is looking to adopt the euro by 2026, far earlier than the current plan to join the euro area by 2029, announced Finance Minister Adrian Câciu, adding that for this to happen the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) must be fully implemented, according to Euractiv.
While Romania could adopt the euro in 2029 at the earliest, Câciu wants the deadline to be 2026.
“The plan for joining the euro area has a horizon of 2029. We maintain it. What I want is 2026. For that, we all have to make an effort, to push through the reforms in the NRRP and have the NRRP 100% fulfilled,” he said.
“If it applies this National Recovery and Resilience Plan and has a faster absorption of European funds,” I believe that by 2026 Romania would “have elements of real convergence, but also nominal so that it can begin to enter the antechamber of the euro area,” said Câciu.
EU countries wishing to switch to the euro must have achieved a high degree of sustainable economic convergence. At the end of 2022, the European Commission said Romania did not meet the conditions needed to adopt the euro.
Since 2007, governments successively promised Romania would join the euro area and adopt the euro currency, though despite there being political will to join the group across the board, the National Bank of Romania announced in 2021 that accession would come in 2029 at the earliest.
The advisor to the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Adrian Vasilescu, said a few days ago that the economic effort at this point would be too big and almost impossible to achieve.