Trichet to Romania: No room for relaxation

“Congratulations for what you’ve done so far, but there is a lot more to do until Romania can converge to the euro, and there is no room for relaxation,” Jean-Claude Trichet (photo), president of the European Central Bank (ECB) warned yesterday. He said the ECB was not giving Romania any direction on the date at which it should adopt the euro. “Romania is welcome to join the eurozone when it is ready. We are not giving a specific time frame. We are encouraging Romania to continue to work really hard in order to achieve convergence,” said Trichet, at the press conference held at the end of yesterday’s meeting of the ECB’s Governor Board on monetary policy. The head of the ECB also said, “the sooner the convergence is achieved, the better”. He emphasised his point by balancing Romania’s macroeconomic achievements in 2006 against the efforts that should be made from now on. “We have noticed that 2006 was a very good year for you, macroeconomic parameters were actually flatteringly good. But there is no room for relaxation because the euro convergence process is a very ambitious one,” added Trichet. He stressed that the ECB was encouraging Romania to increase the efficiency of its reform process. The Central Bank of the eurozone decided yesterday to maintain the reference rate at 3.75%, after its increase by a quarter of a percentage point at the beginning of March. However, Trichet talked about the persistence of certain risks, which, on the long term, might become a fact, especially since they come from outside the eurozone.