Talks about a deadline for Romania's entry into the eurozone could start in 5 years if the program to reduce the deficit below 3% works, the governor of the National Bank of Romania, Mugur Isărescu, said on Wednesday.
„When we manage to bring the budget deficit to 3% and you can see that this is not an easy job, we start talking about a deadline. By then and inflation will be marginally higher, there is no way we can bring it down. It is the country's deficit. It's not X or Y's deficit. Different governments have run it, but it's the country's deficit, right? Personally, I do not approve at all of the glee of some people who talk in this way about the fact that we are going to bang our heads against the walls because of this deficit and because of the situation of the country. The deficit must be financed. If the deficit is not financed, there will be no more pensions, no more salaries for civil servants and so on. We have to be serious about the deficit and debt problem. Who made the debt? Again a question arises. The governments made it, let the governments pay it. The governments acted on behalf of the country....And now, to give you a direct answer, probably if the program that means bringing the deficit below 3% in the next 2-3 years works, we are probably talking in 5 years about entering the eurozone”, said Mugur Isărescu, quoted by Agerpres.
The governor of the NBR also said that in order to bring the public debt below 60%, Romania would have to register a deficit of less than 3% of GDP for several years.
„We, the National Bank, until 2018, in this building, I want to make it clear that I have heard that someone in the banking system was opposed to the entry into the euro area. This is not true. So until 2018 we had meetings of a euro changeover committee. We had through 2017 and the program on where to stop the cash in transit cars bringing euro cash, to stop in Oradea, in Cluj, in Sibiu and so on and where to deposit the notes. And the last meeting we did, because we had this capacity, at the Romanian Academy, with Prime Minister Viorica Dancila. We went to the Romanian Academy with all the political parties in 2018 and we talked about entering the Eurozone. After that the topic disappeared. Indeed, the pandemic appeared, the war appeared. So in this institution you can have every guarantee that we support in all reasonable and true ways the entry into the Eurozone”said Mugur Isărescu.