Estonia may adopt euro from next July

Estonia will be able to meet the Maastricht criteria, the precondition for transition to the euro, this year, the prime minister said.

The prime minister said that meeting of the state budget deficit criterion was in the hands of the government and the parliament and if it was necessary to draw up another negative supplementary budget, it was the duty of the gvoernment and the parliament to do so.

At the end of this year Estonia could order from the European Commission and the European Central Bank an extraordinary assessment of the criteria that would serve as the basis for transition to the euro. A regular assessment could take place at the beginning of next year.

The head of government said that the European Commission and the European Central Bank was prepared to bring the time of the assessment forward and the necessary procedural opportunity for it existed. "It is nothing out of the ordinary," Ansip added. "I have the ground to believe that if Estonia asks for extraordinary assessment it will be done."

Marten Ross, Vice-governor of the Bank of Estonia, Wednesday said that it was highly probable that Estonia would meet all the values of the Maastricht criteria at the end of this year and it was therefore possible that the euro would come into use in Estonia in 2011.