Brussels, 14/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - All those concerned consider Slovenia is the country best placed for taking on single currency. Economic Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia repeated this to the press on Tuesday, pointing out that, at present, Ljubljana was the only capital that meets the criteria for joining the euro zone. This was the same conclusion reached by the president of the Ecofin Council, Austrian Finance Minister Karl-Heinz Grasser, who recalled that “we shall be very severe in our evaluation”. Speaking after the Ecofin Council, Mr Almunia specified that the Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) will be publishing the next convergence report in October 2006, to assess to what degree States benefiting from a derogation (the ten Member Sates resulting from the last enlargement and Sweden) comply with the Maastricht criteria. Only Slovenia, Estonia and Lithuania stated their ambition to adopt single currency as of 2007, but the levels of inflation of the last two are, at the moment, too high compared to the Maastricht criteria (see EUROPE 9122).
Like any Member State called upon to join the euro zone, Slovenia has the possibility of requesting an individual assessment report before October, in order to benefit from a longer time in which to operate changeover from January 2007. In a report on the practical arrangements for taking on single currency, the Commission had judged Slovenia relatively well advanced in its preparations, and it expects the Slovene authorities to make such a request under Austrian Presidency (EUROPE 9062). The last convergence report dates back to October 2004 but the next evaluations of this kind will now take place in May, Mr Almunia specifies.