Croatia has joining the eurozone in its sights, but, as expected, not everyone is jumping for joy at the idea…
Croatia’s desire to join the eurozone is a topic of heated debate of late, with a large percentage of the population against adopting the currency as the country’s official tender despite many politicians, particularly the PM, being all for it.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 13th of November, 2017, Economic analyst Velimir Šonje expects the country to enter into the eurozone in 2024, while professor at the Zagreb School of Economics, Marijana Ivanov, believes that Croatia will enter the eurozone between 2023 and 2025. Managing Director of Končar D&S Petar Vlaić hopes the country will introduce the euro as soon as possible, while chief economist at Splitska Banka Zdeslav Šantić estimates that this won’t happen before 2025. Apparently the most radical position was held by Maruška Vizek, the director of the Croatian Institute of Economy, resolutely saying that Croatia would never introduce the euro as its official currency.
60 percent of citizens are currently opposed to Croatia’s entry into the eurozone.
“I’m not saying that because I don’t think we need to adopt the euro, on the contrary, but because we won’t meet the requirements,” Vizek clarified, referring to the need to lower the public debt. This was agreed with by Zdeslav Šantić, who considers the reduction of public debt to be of a temporary character. “According to many indicators, we’re behind the EU,” says Šantić. Marijana Ivanov, however, believes that the share of public debt will continue to decline because we’ve become more serious when public finances are concerned and because Brussels and the International Monetary Fund will be forceful in that. ”Our whole current economic growth is only due to the growth in Europe and the world, but we don’t know what will happen in the global economy over the next few years,” Ivanov said.
Concerning the concrete benefits for exporters, Petar Vlaić considers that Croatia’s entry into the eurozone will lead to the elimination of the exchange rate risk and the cost of converting kuna into euros, as well as lower interest rates.
“But there is also a question of image like there was with entering the EU. Entering the Eurozone is a step further in profiling Croatia as a European country,” stated Vlaić.
When asked by the moderator why 60 percent of the country’s citizens are against the adoption of the euro, Maruška Vizek estimated that our citizens always refuse everything new and strange.
“There is a public myth that the introduction of the euro is linked to price increases, but the analysis of the experiences of all the countries that have entered the eurozone shows that this increase was never significant, at most, it was 0.3 percent,” Vizek clarified. Marijan Ivanov added that citizens are unable to identify with the benefits at the macroeconomic level.
Velimir Šonje also believes that there should be no fear of the collapse of the eurozone because after 2011, numerous new control mechanisms have been introduced.
Translated from Poslovni.hr
