POLAND’S entry into the euro is imminent—in theory. With relatively healthy public finances, it should easily qualify. The economy is slowing but it is still the fastest-growing among big EU countries. Germany wants Poland in, at one time even talking of it joining in 2015. Yet Donald Tusk’s Civic Platform-led government has an opaque public line, promising only to join when the conditions are right.
The truth is that Poland faces a tricky dilemma. Mr Tusk has no wish to adopt the euro in its present crisis. But since the likely solution involves greater political and fiscal integration, it could become harder to join later. Mr Tusk won reassuring caveats for the EU’s ten non-euro “outs” in the euro-zone’s fiscal compact, but worries about losing out in a multispeed Europe persist. “The necessary measures to save the euro zone will lead to its closer political integration,” says Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, vice-governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank, and a former Europe minister. “Unfortunately, from the point of view of the Poles, Czechs, Swedes and others outside the block it means the EU is becoming a two-tier club.”
Read more: http://www.economist.com/node/21560598?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/augustiniandelay
