Isarescu: We wanted to join the euro zone relatively unprepared

Romania wanted to join the euro zone with an imbalanced structure in terms of budget revenues and public spending, National Bank of Romania Governor Mugur Isarescu said, comparing the adoption of the single currency with the NATO accession in 2004, which occurred before the military had been completely reformed.

“We tried to transform the economy much too fast. We wanted to join the euro zone with relatively little preparation, as we did with the NATO. We moved from an Eastern military to a professional Western one and there was no other option than early retirement,” Isarescu told the Forumul Financiar 2010 (2010 Financial Forum) event, organised by Forum Invest.

Romania formally maintains its target to shift to the single European currency on the 1st of January 2015, a calendar promoted by the National Bank itself, whose officials believe that keeping this date would give reforms a boost. This is the second time in the last few months when the Governor has warned Romania must not move to the euro unless it has completed domestic reforms.

Nouriel Roubini, one of the world’s most famous economists, also says that Romania has no other way to come out of the crisis than by adopting harsh austerity measures to rectify the budget deficit.