Goalposts pushed back for Estonia

TALLINN - The European Central Bank has expressed doubts about Estonia’s eligibility to join the euro area, writes daily Eesti Paevaleht. At the closed meeting of the Economic and Monetary Committee of the European Parliament that took place last week, Jurgen Stark, a member of the ECB’s Governing Board from Germany, estimated that Estonia is currently not able to adopt the single currency.

According to him, although Estonia fulfils the Maastricht criteria, and though Estonia has a currency board system, Estonia is not fit to adopt the euro, at least not now. He said that new extra criteria are needed to assess the preparedness to join the euro area - for example, to take into account the GDP per capita numbers. Figures for 2008 show this to be 67.4 percent of the average for EU27 countries.

One of the Europarliament members who attended the meeting but requested anonymity said that he has no doubts that Stark’s message to Estona is “no.” Estonia’s representative in the committee, Ivari Padar, also attended the meeting.  “Jurgen Stark represents a conservative, skeptical doubting position, central banker style,” he said.
But Padar also stresses that Estonia’s acceptance isn’t a done deal. “A serious debate is coming and Estonia’s aim has to be to convince those who doubt and those who oppose.” The main issue is whether Estonia is sustainable in all the steps it has undertaken to fulfill the Maastricht criteria.