Warsaw/Brussels, 04/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - That's a first. The Polish minister of finance, Jacek Rostowski, whose country has the rotating Presidency of the European Union until December but has not yet adopted the single currency, has been invited to take part in the work of the Eurogroup, currently focusing on putting together a second financial rescue plan for Greece. “Mr Juncker invited the Polish finance minister, Jacek Rostowski, to attend the Eurogroup”, a spokesperson to the president of the Eurogroup told AFP.
The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, who launched an appeal last week in favour of greater involvement for his country in the discussions of Eurogroup, spoke of stormy debates with his European partners. First of all, we were told that the eurozone was entitled to meet independently, he explained. Presenting the press with the priorities of the Polish Presidency on Saturday 2 July, Rostowski said that the financial crisis had revealed the “institutional and structural problems with the eurozone”. Criticising a lack of coordination between the Ecofin Council and the Eurogroup, he described it as “strange” that the interim executive director of the International Monetary Fund, the American John Lipsky, was able to attend the Eurogroup meeting in Luxembourg on Sunday 20 June even though the Hungarian Presidency at the time was not represented (EUROPE 10401). He also expressed reservations about the effectiveness of the financial stability mechanisms of the eurozone (the EFSF facility and the future European Stability Mechanism), which he said still needed “many improvements” in order to bring “more appropriate” solutions than the ones found for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
As for Poland's accession to the euro, an objective placed upon the country when it joined the EU in 2004, Tusk said that his country would adopt the single currency once the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact were “trustworthy” and applied permanently. (J.K./M.B./transl.fl)