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Analyst: Greece's Financial Problems May Slow Eurozone Enlargement
Sunday 13 December 2009 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, December 13 (TASR) - Economic problems and the growing indebtedness of Greece, which is on the verge of bankruptcy, may mean that future eurozone enlargement will be slower and insistence on sustainable and undoubted meeting of the accession criteria will be stricter, TASR was told by Volksbank Slovensko analyst Vladimir Vano on Sunday.
This could especially concern Estonia, Poland or Romania -countries that wanted to join the 16 eurozone countries by 2014.
"This means that within the group of countries with a market of more than 60-million people from Poland to Bulgaria, Slovakia may for a long time remain the only Central European (new) eurozone member. Thus, arguments about the euro as a strengthening (power) of the strategic Slovakia's position gains even more relevance," said Vano.
On the other side, Vano noted that the importance of respecting the budget discipline of eurozone members is growing as well and Slovakia won't be able to afford to exceed the planned public finance deficit of 5.5 percent of GDP in 2010.
"After the EU's experience with Greece – which was denied entry to the eurozone initially – it holds true that consistent meeting of the planned deficit is an imperative. Either the deficit won't be exceeded; and if there are differences it will be necessary to adopt measures – even unpopular ones," added the analyst.
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