VILNIUS - More than half of Lithuania's population supports adopting the euro, a Sept. 13-18 poll carried out by the public opinion and market research firm RAIT showed. However, the number of those in favor of early euro adoption is dwindling. According to the poll, some 53.8 percent of Lithuania's population backs adoption of the single currency, which is up by 0.2 percentage points compared with a similar poll carried out in March.
But the number of those opposed to the euro slightly increased from 41.8 to 42 percent.
The number of Lithuanians eager to replace the national currency with the euro as soon as possible decreased by 3.5 percentage points, to 27 percent, while the number of those in favor of adopting the single currency five years from now rose to 19.4 percent, from 18.2 percent.
Those who wished to replace the national currency with the euro 10 years from now increased from 4.9 percent to 7.4 percent as compared with the March poll. Those who did not care one way or the other decreased from 4.7 percent to 4.1 percent.
People aged between 65 and 74 were most skeptical about the single currency, with 59 percent opposed to euro entry, down by 3.8 percentage points when compared with the March poll. The highest number of early euro-adoption supporters is within the 15- to 44- year-old age group, or over 30 percent, down by 5 percentage points on average.
Lithuania's aspirations to adopt the euro in January 2007 fell through when the European Commission ruled in May that the country was not ready to introduce the single currency. This was a result of Lithuania's twelve-month inflation average being slightly above the commission's established reference value.
The Lithuanian government has recently set the next target for the adoption of the euro in 2010 at earliest.
