Romania & Bulgaria To Enter The Eurozone In 2015

Bulgaria and Romania may enter the Eurozone in 2015, announced the Fitch Ratings agency on April 16.Edward Parker, Head of the Emerging Europe Sovereigns department at Fitch also stressed that the European Union (EU) is not planning to loosen the Maastricht requirements for entering the Eurozone on the latest member-states because the Union's authorities do not want to deepen the crisis and financial pressure in the Eurozone. Furthermore, EU states believe that the newly-accepted members would not be able to pay the economic price for adjusting to the new currency, which might inflict additional problems.However, the rating agency is resolute that Bulgaria and Romania will benefit from entering the Eurozone because this will reduce the threat of a currency crisis. What is more, the credit ratings of the two countries will be raised automatically.Fitch envisages that Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland will enter the Eurozone in 2013, and the Czech Republic and Hungary in 2014.Earlier this month the EU appealed to Eastern European countries to consider scrapping local currencies in favor of the Euro even before formally entering the Eurozone. This was announced in a confidential report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and cited by the Financial Times.The call from the EU was met with opposition from Bulgarian finance minister Plamen Oresharski, who declared that the introduction of the Euro would not have a significant impact on the country's economy. He added that Bulgaria had been considering the adoption of the Euro for more than ten years and that it would not be a big drama.At the same time, the Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, Ivan Iskrov, stated the currency peg (imposed because Bulgaria is under the currency board) practically has made Bulgaria an informal member of the Eurozone.Despite that, the country has yet to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism, which is the "waiting room" before Euro membership. Bulgaria's entry in the Eurozone has been continually delayed due to high inflation rates and external trade imbalances.