The crisis in Greece hasn’t killed off Romania’s interest in the currency union.
The extraordinary political and economic turbulence of the Greek debt crisis has prompted widespread speculation that other European countries will now think twice before joining the 19-nation eurozone.
To assess these claims, The WorldPost took a closer look at reactions in Romania, the only European Union member nation that’s announced a target year for joining the currency area.
Greece’s experience has heightened concerns in Romania about joining the eurozone prematurely, experts told The WorldPost– but it hasn’t extinguished Romania’s interest altogether. Romania does not have the disdain for Greece common in the Baltic states and Slovakia, and in fact shares some of the Greek public’s wariness of austerity policies. But Romania’s emergence from communism and rapid transition to capitalism since the 1990s, and its more recent economic interdependence with German industry, have made eurozone membership a goal for the country’s political class.
European Union member nations are officially required to join the eurozone once they have met the criteria for integration, including stable inflation, low budget deficits and sustainable debt. Denmark and the United Kingdom have permission to remain outside the currency union. Sweden, which has been a member of the EU since the inception of the euro, has yet to meet the fiscal and monetary criteria for joining.
Romania declared at one point that it intended to join the eurozone in 2019.