REUTERS: Lithuania said on Wednesday it could meet the criteria for euro entry in 2010
Updated 2009-03-19
VILNIUS, March 18 (Reuters) - Lithuania said on Wednesday it could meet the criteria for euro entry in 2010 and adopt the single currency a year or two later, as planned, but was ready for a speedier move if the EU suggested this as a cure for crisis.
Lithuania had to abandon its plans to adopt the euro in 2007 due to high inflation. It has pledged to keep its litas pegged to the euro despite pressure from currency falls in the region.
A mini-run on the litas two weeks ago also prompted people to buy about 40 million euros of foreign currency, Lithuanian media quoted officials as saying.
"We should meet the Maastricht criteria or be very close to those criteria at the beginning of 2010, when we would be able to say firmly, 'we are ready to adopt the euro'," Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius told journalists after meeting President Valdas Adamkus ahead of an EU summit.
"Based on the existing rules it (euro adoption) could happen in 2011 or 2012," he added.
But he also said Lithuania was ready to adopt the euro sooner were the EU to decide this could help Lithuania and the other Baltic states get through an economic crisis.
"We are ready to join the euro zone at any time. If the EU decides that one of the instruments (to get out of the crisis) would be a speedier adoption of euro, we would certainly not object to that," Kubilius said.
He said adopting the euro was one of the best ways for the Baltic states to get back on the road to recovery.
"I personally can't disagree with those international experts who say this could be one of the best instruments for the Baltic states to withstand the global crisis," he added.
Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said last week his country could ask for an extraordinary assessment from the European Commission and ECB on euro adoption readiness this year so it could join the euro zone in July 2010, a year earlier than expected.
Kubilius said Lithuania was not asking for a relaxation of the euro adoption criteria, leaving it to the EU to decide itself what would be the best strategy to deal with the crisis.
Lithuania expects a gross domestic product drop of more than 5 percent this year. Latvia and Estonia are also in recessions.
Kubilius said the government would do its best to keep the fiscal budget deficit below the EU ceiling of 3 percent of gross domestic product, while inflation would fall anyway.
Kubilius said the closure of Soviet-era Ignalina nuclear power plant due end-2009 would not have such as big an impact as expected on electricity prices and inflation as gas prices would also fall.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; Editing by Victoria Main)
