“We spoke that we should speed up Lithuania’s accession to the euro zone due to the European Parliament’s elections next year. We want the incumbent European Parliament to approve Lithuania’s accession to the euro zone, if we actually manage to meet all Maastricht criteria,” Rimkūnas said at a news conference held after his meeting with Alain Lamassoure, chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgets, in Vilnius on Thursday.
He explained that the data about Lithuania’s preparedness for euro adoption would be submitted at an earlier date.
“Macroeconomic information is usually submitted around May, while we will submit it in March. It would be somewhat preliminary, yet we hope that the European Parliament, same as other European Union’s institutions, will believe, accept it and will be able to decide on Lithuania’s eligibility,” Rimkūnas said.
A country’s accession to the euro zone first needs the approval of the European Commission and the European Central Bank, later, of the Ecofin Council and next, of the European Parliament. Finally, the invitation for the country to join the single currency is approved by the Ecofin.
Elections to the European Parliament will be held in late May 2014.
