Poland says no target date yet to join "flawed" eurozone

Jul 2, 2011, 14:44 GMT

Warsaw - Poland still does not have a target year for adopting Europe's common currency, Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski said Saturday, noting that the global financial crisis had uncovered 'significant institutional and structural flaws in the eurozone.'

'It's those flaws that have to be repaired' before Poland feels comfortable joining, he told reporters in Warsaw the day after his country took over the six-month rotating presidency of the European Union.

'The stability of the eurozone is an absolutely vital Polish interest,' he added. 'It's clear that a great deal needs to be done. We need to think about the potential traps and reefs along the route.'

Persistent debt problems in Greece - one of three eurozone countries to have needed an international bailout - have fueled fears of contagion to the rest of the common currency area and of a potential depreciation of the euro.

The currency has so far remained relatively constant, however, trading at 1.45 to the dollar when markets closed on Friday.

Poland, which joined the EU in 2004, is legally bound to replace its zloty currency with the euro and had initially been expected to do so around 2014.

'We're still dreaming about the euro, but we are less romantic about it today,' said Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak, who also serves as Poland's deputy premier.

Asked if it could be adopted during the term of incoming European Central Bank president Mario Draghi, which runs from 2011 to 2019, Rostowski only would say 'maybe.' He noted that Poland still has to meet inflation targets that are a pre-requisite for it to join.

In the meantime, Warsaw would like to see more 'efficient' communication between the finance ministers of the common currency area and those of the EU at large, Rostowski said.

Poland wants to have unprecedented access as a non-euro member to meetings of the Eurogroup panel of eurozone finance ministers - an idea that Prime Minister Donald Tusk this week suggested has already created 'heated debate' in Brussels.

Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski argued that it is normal for Poland to want to have a say in decisions now being made that will affect the country once it joins the eurozone.

'We need efficient coordination between the Eurogroup and (EU finance ministers) ... It's just not efficient that all we get is a report back (from the Eurogroup),' Rostowski said. 'In normal times, it doesn't matter. But we haven't had normal times.'

Rostowski said he had not been asked to participate in a Eurogroup teleconference on Greece due to be held late on Saturday, or in the next regular Eurogroup meeting on July 11.

In more general terms, Rostowski argued, politicians have to 'start thinking in terms of common European interest' and show solidarity - a mantra of the Polish EU presidency - amid signs of 'growing estrangement' between northern and southern member states.

'The short-sightedness of some opposition parties in some countries regarding common institutions and programmes is breathtaking,' he said. 'If we don't hang together, we all hang separately.'

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