Euro Delay?

Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas has conceded that the government may fail in its objective of taking Lithuania into the eurozone in January 2007, but has said that a one-year delay would not be a tragedy. For most of 2005, Lithuania was alone among the Baltic states in meeting both the Maastricht fiscal and monetary criteria. In December, however, the 12-month average inflation rate reached 2.7%, 0.2 percentage points above the Maastricht reference value calculated over the same period. Critics argue that the government’s willingness to consider a one-year delay may be because the ruling parties are afraid of a possible jump in prices after the adoption of the euro and before municipal elections in late 2007

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