Certain criteria for Romania’s accession to the eurozone, such as the budget deficit, inflation and interest rates, risk being unable to be met next year, Valentin Lazea, National Bank of Romania (BNR) Chief Economist stated on Monday in a press conference.
”The biggest danger of overtaking is the consolidated budget deficit at the 3 percent of GDP limit and which, according to the European Commission’s forecast, is likely to exceed this level to 3.9 percent in 2018, unless compensatory measures are taken,” central bank official stated.
Valentin Lazea also said that two other criteria are in danger of being missed from next year.
“These criteria refer to inflation, that harmonized index of consumer prices and the long-term interest rate. The inflation criterion is a moving target which was 1.5 percentage points in September above 0.4 percent, which is the average of the most important, meaning 1.9 percent,” BNR’s Lazea added.
He said that Romania fulfilled the inflation criterion in September, but according to the BNR forecast it will exceed 2.5 percent by the middle of 2018.