VILNIUS - The Finance Ministry last week announced that, as of January, Lithuania does not exceed the inflation threshold necessary for joining the eurozone next year. The country's inflation for the nine months to the end of January was 2.55 percent, or 8 basis points below the Maastricht reference value of 2.63 percent for the same period.
Ministry officials said their estimates were based on the latest data published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office.
In order to comply with the Maastricht inflation criterion, all candidate countries must keep their inflation rate within 1.5 percentage points of the three best-performing EU countries in terms of price stability. Among EU members, the lowest average annual inflation for the nine-month period was registered in Sweden (0.92 percent), Finland (0.96 percent) and Poland (1.47 percent).
On March 1, the Bank of Lithuania said it would ask Brussels for an assessment of its readiness for eurozone membership by the end of the current month.
"In my opinion, the government and the Bank of Lithuania should address the European Commission and the European Central Bank in the nearest time, in March, so that these institutions could draw their respective convergence reports," Reinoldijus Sarkinas told the Baltic News Service.
Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas has also mentioned the government's intention to approach the EU in March.
Sarkinas refused to speculate on the term required for the convergence reports to be drawn. Compliance of April inflation rates with the Maastricht reference value will only be known in late May.
In January, the 12-month annual inflation average, measured by the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP), stood at 2.7 percent in Lithuania, 0.1 points above the Maastricht reference value.
The average for the last nine months, i.e. from May 2005 till Jan. 2006, was 2.55 percent in Lithuania in January, 0.08 points below the reference value of 2.63 percent, the latest estimations of the country's Finance Ministry have shown.
