Poland to meet euro criteria in 2007: minister

Poland will be ready in 2007 to join the euro, Polish Finance Minister Miroslaw Gronicki said Wednesday after Brussels said that none of the 10 new EU members meets the criteria yet for adopting the single European currency.

The European Commission and the European Central Bank said that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, which joined the EU on May 1, had not fulfilled the five tests for euro membership.

"I see this as a forecast of the European Union, a pessimistic forecast perhaps, but everyone sees things in their own manner," said the Polish finance minister.

"I have another view of the application of the criteria. According to our programme, we are capable of realising it in 2007," he added.

Poland wants officially to enter the eurozone "as soon as possible", but the first realistic date mentionned by Polish and European officials is 2009.

Only three new EU member are on a fast-track to euro entry -- Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia -- which this year joined the so-called ERM (exchange rate mechanism) II, to limit fluctuations between their currencies and the euro.

According to EU rules, they must spend at least two years in ERM II, and could therefore in theory apply to join the eurozone in 2006, possibly taking up the currency at the start of 2007.