The Lithuanian opposition party – the Social Democrats – that leads polls before October’s election claims it will delay euro-adoption if it heads the next government, bnn-news.com reports.
“Joining the euro area is unrealistic in 2014. It should happen one or two years later,” says Algirdas Butkevicius, head of the party.
The party, which led Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius’s Homeland Union by 10 percentage points in a July survey, would remain fiscally responsible and keep the goal to cut next year’s fiscal deficit to 2.5% of GDP, he says.
According to him, the euro area must solve its own problems, reports BBN, referring to Bloomberg.
“What’s the rush now for us to pay for their bailouts when it’s been obvious since at least 2004 that Greece had to take measures to avoid bankruptcy?”
Kubilius, who defeated the Social Democrats four years ago, cut wages and increased taxs in 2009 and 2010.
Although the country’s GDP grew at the EU’s second-fastest rate after Estonia last year, unemployment has doubled since the crisis and the emigration rate is the bloc’s highest.
Besides, the proportion of people at risk of poverty is up to the biggest among the bloc’s 27 members, according to Eurostat.
However, investors welcome Lithuania’s austerity measures, which cut the budget deficit to 5.5% in 2011 from 9.4% in 2009, rewarding it with record-low borrowing costs.
