Governor Isarescu: Romania has to adopt the euro at some point

The governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isarescu, says it is not a question of if but when Romania will join the eurozone.

Isarescu underlined the fact that any economy looking to adopt the euro has to be competitive and it needs successful structural reforms.

“From a legal perspective, the adoption of the euro is something that was realized, because except the UK and Denmark, Romania does not have the opt-out option form the economic and monetary union. This means that Romania has to adopt the euro at some point. For Romania, this question is when, not if, because we don’t have the opt-out option,” said Isarescu, according to Agerpres newswire.

The head of the central bank explained that Romania fulfils the Maastrich criteria to join the eurozone, but there is still work to be done on real convergence.

Romania doesn’t have at this moment a target date to join the eurozone and the situation is the same for Hungary, Poland and The Czech Republic, said Isarescu.