Romania has chosen the middle way in terms of adopting the single currency, considering a real convergence level of 70-75% as critical before adoption, given that it is now 61%, the governor of the National Bank, Mugur Isarescu, said on Friday.

He added that the shocks would be quite high if Romania would adopt the euro now, according to Agerpres.

“Romania has chosen the middle way in terms of adopting the single currency, considering a real convergence level of at least 70 – 75% as critical before the adoption. Now we are at a real convergence level of 61%. At this level we would be severely affected by the asymmetric shocks and thus we could not synchronize the business cycles with the other European economies in the Eurozone,” said Mugur Isarescu.

The NBR governor said that regarding the Maastricht criteria, from 2015 to November 2017 , Romania met all the convergence criteria, but did not participate in the exchange rate mechanisms. The fact that at this moment the long-term interest rates and the inflation are no longer in line with the established ones indicates that we should aim for a nominal convergence of duration, not accidental or temporary, says Isarescu.