Flash Eurobarometer survey finds 75 pct of Romanians favor switch to euro

Romania has the highest percentage of respondents with a positive opinion about the introduction of the European single currency - 75 percent, found the latest Flash Eurobarometer survey released on Friday, which shows that the switch to the euro enjoys broad support in EU member states that have not yet adopted it. The survey was conducted in the seven member states that have not yet joined the eurozone, specifically Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. The vast majority of the surveyed EU citizens (60 percent) believe that the changeover to the euro has had positive consequences for the countries that already use it. Also, 52 percent of the respondents consider that, in general, the introduction of the euro will have positive consequences for their country and 55 percent believe that this move will positively affect their personal lives. Overall, 57 percent of respondents are in favor of introducing the euro in their country. The highest share of respondents with a positive opinion were registered in Romania (75 percent in favor of the euro) and Hungary (69 percent). Except for the Czech Republic, there is an increase in the share of those in favor of the introduction of the euro compared to 2020 across all member states that participated in the survey. The highest increases are noticeable in Romania (from 63 percent to 75 percent) and Sweden (from 35 percent to 43 percent). The latest enlargement of the euro area dates back to 2015, when Lithuania became the 19th member state of the monetary bloc. Although all EU member states except Denmark are required to join the euro area, few countries make serious efforts to join the single zone. The 2020 convergence report on Romania shows that the country does not yet meet any of the four economic requirements for the adoption of the euro, namely price stability, sound public finances, exchange rate stability and long-term interest rate convergence. AGERPRES (RO - author: Constantin Balaban, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)