Talk:Enlargement of the eurozone/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Starting Points

I've added some starting points to this article - basically a short summary of the position of each country in the EU aside Sweden, Denmark and the UK (so far), based on the legacy currency articles and the "x euro coins" articles. A few of these - Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Romania, Sweden, Denmark and the UK contain very little information relevant to their subjects (the coins that these countries will/would use on joining the euro) and far more information relevant to this one - as such most of these articles could have most or all of their material merged here. Pfainuk 18:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Big merge

Please, join the discussion on the articles merging on the Euro talk page. Don't write anything here to avoid writing the same in different places. Thanks.--Dima1 (talk) 16:29, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Map

Andorra is listed as opting out of the Euro, but i thought they used the euro. Arthurian Legend (talk) 02:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

They are coloured purple on the map, not red, same status as Kosovo, Montenegro and A&D - not an opt out like UK and Den.- J Logan ^t: 17:09, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Didn't Malta technically join before Cyprus?

As Malta's timezone makes it have midnight before Cyprus. According to the front page Cyprus joined before Malta! Biofoundationsoflanguage (talk) 11:45, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean, Malta is on CET where as Cyprus is on EET, EAST of Malta and one hour ahead. How would Malta be an hour ahead of Cyprus, they would have to be on Moscow time or something.- J Logan ^t: 17:11, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly, please check the timezones. Cyprus is ahead of Malta in time, not the other way around. JdeJ (talk) 19:25, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't count. Time zone differences are never taken into account when making comparisons like this. Unless you want to say which actually used it first. Then clearly its Cyprus. But when they join AFAIK is always just written as a particular time in treaties and stuff, and then construed to be local time of the area in question. (i.e. treaty-wise they were both just 00:00 on 01/01/08 and they each used local time to implement it) - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 00:06, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

In that case, you could also say that Greece and Finland joined one hour ahead of France and Germany, two hours ahead of the Republic of Ireland, three hours ahead of Portugal and several hours before some of France's DOM-TOMs, at least if you look at the time when euro cash was introduced. (212.247.11.156 (talk) 08:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC))

United Kingdom euro coins

The entire contents of the article United Kingdom euro coins was either contained here or entirely speculative in nature, until I removed the speculation. This article now seems rather pointless. Is there any objection if I redirect that article here? I suggest that comments be made at Talk:United Kingdom euro coins#Crystal Balls Pfainuk talk 23:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. While I completely agree with you in removing the speculative facts of the article, I think that people should understand two things: England does not use the euro and why. The article definitely need some sorting, but considering how many pointers out there point to it, it should be kept. We have similar issues with Andorra, Sweden, Denmark, Kosovo. ... Etc. Miguel.mateo (talk) 23:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

What's the use of an article about United Kingdom euro coins? The article would go something like this:

The United Kingdom does not use the euro, and so no United Kingdom euro coins exist. Period.

This sounds a little too short for an article. Information about why the UK doesn't use the euro would go elsewhere. (212.247.11.156 (talk) 18:07, 5 May 2008 (UTC))

Check the article and you will see that this question is no-sense ... there is a lot of more information there. Miguel.mateo (talk) 00:08, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

How far?

Following the addition of info on Croatia and Iceland, I thought I'd see if there was consensus on the question of how far this article should go in including non-members. I think it is obvious that we should include all countries in the EU that do not use the euro.

My inclination is to say that we should, on principle we should base our decision for non-eurozone states on whether concrete moves have been made to join the euro specifically rather than the EU in general. That is, if Croatia (for example) is currently planning its eurozone entry in public, then we can comment on it. If not, then we can't. Given that Croatia doesn't know when it will join the EU yet, I find the latter position rather more likely. The current addition on Croatia needs some sources to back it up, and I suspect original research (possibly in the form of original synthesis) in the conclusion that Croatia meets the convergence criteria. My point is that I see little benefit in including countries where there is concrete information on joining the EU generally, but none on the eurozone specifically.

OTOH there are sources demonstrating that Iceland was considering joining the euro despite not being a member of the EU (here, here here and in the list here). This was apparently ruled out in February but is worthy of mention I think.

Any thoughts? Pfainuk talk 22:48, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Iceland agree (they want the euro not the union). Croatia, it is interesting that they may join the Eurozone even before of some of the current members since they do meet the criteria. If properly sourced I will vote to keep it, just considering that they may join immediately after they join the union. But, it is also a big gray area, so either (keep it or delete it) is fine with me. Miguel.mateo (talk) 22:56, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the bit about Croatia should stay if it can be sourced. So right now I'm going to put a cite tag on the Croatian section and see what happens. The current reference for the figures is to Economy of Croatia, an article which doesn't mention eurozone membership - and Wikipedia is not a reliable source anyway so I will remove that reference. Pfainuk talk 22:06, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Liechtenstein

What is the status of Liechtenstein regarding the Eurozone? Why is Liechtenstein not mentioned at all in the article? -Xufanc (talk) 07:20, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Liechtenstein uses the Swiss Franc. You would have probably found that information reading the Liechtenstein article. Tomeasy _{T C} 12:07, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for answering. Even though it is mentioned in the infobox that it uses the Swiss Franc, there is not enough information in the Liechtenstein article about the monetary position of Liechtenstein vs the EU. Unlike Switzerland, this small state is a member of the European Economic Area. Looking further (after I had written the request above) I found a small section on Liechtenstein in Microstates and the European Union and I have added the link to the article on the country. Xufanc (talk) 13:10, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

timetable

Do we really need the second table as well..?! I think the information is not really useful and is already featured in the first table as well. The only thing we could use is the ERM II entry!Olliyeah (talk) 17:15, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

National side of coins: Not under consideration

In the table at the bottom of the page, it says "National side of coins: Not under consideration" for some countries. In my opinion, this can be interpreted in at least two ways:

• The countries have not decided what to put on the back of the coins, or
• The countries have not decided whether to have a national side.

The latter is obviously impossible, but an uninformed reader might not know it. Obviously, the former is intended, but maybe it could be explained in a better way?

Some comments at Talk:United Kingdom and the euro suggest that the UK might have prepared some national sides secretely just in case the country quickly decides to switch currency. And maybe there are similar secret plans in some of the other "not under consideration" / "not yet decided" countries, although no one knows of it yet. Would it be an option to simply write "none known" instead? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.247.11.156 (talk) 20:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Most countries are choosing their sides by public competition well in advance so I doubt anyone else has sides prepared. The UK may have done, wouldn't surprise me but they'd probably be drafts as they have to have the approval of the Chancellor and as there was no intention in the short term to join the euro I doubt the decision making process got that far and hence there are no agreed sides. I'll change the text though anyway as not under consideration isn't the best we could come up with I'd bet.- _J.Logan`^t: 12:07, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

New Data?

Is the data on the chart from May 2012? If so, then why does the footnote say 2010? If indeed the data was replaced with the current reporting, then why does it not state this so on can evaluate the situation correctly? I do believe this data on the EU members is from the May 2012 report of the ECB. Whomever it was that updated it, thanks. Would you please update note 5 if this is indeed true? Thanks again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Julien Houle (talk • contribs) 15:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

I have just updated the entire "Target dates" for euro adoption in the last section of the article, and also updated the entire criteria template with a new set of economic stats. In the criteria template, titles and footnotes now clearly also explain the year for the data, and how the reference values and evaluation process works. The previous debt+deficit data in the template showed the criteria and values for Fiscal Year 2011, and the final evaluation of criteria compliance as of 30 March 2012. As these data and the evaluation results have been displayed and well-known for around 4 months, it was however more interesting now to let the table show a forecasted outlook for the next evaluation as of 31 March 2013. In order to ensure a continued availability for the old previous data, I have saved them into this new file: Template:Euro convergence criteria (April 2012).

For the current euro convergence criteria template with new data, I have uploaded the most recent forecast values for HICP inflation, deficit and debt (as per the outlook for next evaluation time: 31 March 2013). These new forecast data were all easy to extract from the EC Spring Economic Forecast, and will be fast to extract and update again, when the EC Autumn Economic Forecast report gets published in November 2012. In regards of the average values for "Annual long term interest rates", the ECB source also publish numbers on a monthly basis (being relatively easy to extract and add). So it is now possible to update the table with new figures during the upcomming year, and thus follow if the outlook turns in a red or green direction halfways through (by November 2012). Just be careful to read and understand all the hidden notes.Danish Expert (talk) 21:08, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Big Bang

The term "Big Bang" used a few times in "Summary of Adoption Progess" tables is not explained anywhere. Big Bang Disambiguity page refers to Big Bang Scenario but is in red (no page is available). I assume it means an instant changeover - is this correct? Tiddy (talk) 02:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Recently I added this EU reference to the wikitable, that explain the meaning of "Big Bang" introduction. Danish Expert (talk) 23:47, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Update?

A lot of the information in this article is becoming outdated. It seems that it could use a major update by someone familiar with the European sovereign debt crisis and the economic conditions of the potential Eurozone members. AD ASTRA SCIENTIA (talk) 20:22, 7 June 2011 (UTC)

I have now performed a major update of the entire article (including templates+wikitables). Danish Expert (talk) 23:51, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Template:Potential Euro adoption future

Can someone, please explain me what does this temaplte ({{Potential Euro adoption future}}) mean? Sweden has do adopt, why do we have to have another table with it? what is the collumn "EU" you have to be a member of the EU in order to adopt the euro ... I honestly see no value and it confuses the readers.

Thanks, Miguel.mateo (talk) 16:22, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

This template is for currencies which could join the Euro e.g. the GB pound but are not currently on track to be migrated either through political exemptions or through legal loopholes or thorough non member ship of the union of candidate countries.--Lucy-marie (talk) 18:19, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

I honestly believe it does not make sense, I prefer to have the GBP in the other table with a footnote that they are not obliged to join and they have no plans to do it. Sweden does not meet your criteria, I have shown you enough references I hope. Regards, Miguel.mateo (talk) 03:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

The template can be used for non-EU currencies as well such the IKK or HRK, which are either considering joining. the SKK in my opinion, is still up for debate due to the legal loophole being used and the failure to join when everyone else did, at the introduction of the currency.--Lucy-marie (talk) 11:48, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that the SKK already has joined. GBP and SEK are not on track to join the euro since the governments aren't doing anything to make the currencies join. SEK is required to join the euro if, at some point, all of the convergence criteria are fullfilled, but doesn't, as far as I know, have to join ERM II, thus being able to avoid joining the euro forever. On the other hand, the governments of DK, HR and IS are talking of joining the euro, so I guess one could say that they are on track to join the euro. On the other hand, the "being on track"/"not being on track" status may change at any point, possibly millions of times every day and may be hard to define. The dictator of Belarus at some point, when the relations with Russia were bad, suggested that BYR would join the euro. Wouldn't that mean that BYR was on track to join the euro until the dictator changed his mind? Wouldn't it be better to replace the text with something clearly defined, such as "obliged to adopt the euro if, at some point, the convergence criteria are fullfilled"?

And: do we really need all of these templates saying almost the same thing? (212.247.11.156 (talk) 00:07, 8 January 2009 (UTC))

A question: is euro accession merely fulfilling technical accession criteria (2 years of ERM, inflation and debt within limits, ...)? There is no mention of any political criteria; e.g. unanimous acceptance of the submission by existing euro member countries. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.147.101.197 (talk) 23:23, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct. There is no political criteria. All newly accessed EU members (since 2004) are obliged to adopt the euro the moment they comply with all 5 convergence criteria, and not allowed to schedule referendums about it. It is however 100% up to each newly accessed EU member state to decide, when the country should fix their currency rate to the euro and become an ERM-II member (which is known as the 5th convergence criteria). This in effect decides when the country will be headed for euro adoption. During 2012, political debates among EU leaders however started, if it perhaps would be appropriate to allow/require that the newly accessed EU members also scheduled "euro referendums", because of the fact that the "eurozone integration" recently had developed into a much more ambitious level, compared to how the "eurozone" worked back in the days where the newly accessed EU members signed their Accession Treaty. I am not aware of any official conclusion on those debates. Until official conclusions arrive, the old decision still stands: That newly accessed EU members are not allowed to hold "euro referendums", and should adopt the euro in the year after they have managed to comply with all five convergence criteria. Danish Expert (talk) 00:22, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Faroes euro adoption

for reference: Logting, fishupdate.com, Icenews.is, kringvarp

Okay, fact tag slapped on it: "The Faroese document is not an application to the ECB. Instead, it is a document recently presented to the Faroese Parliament. The Icenews reference refers to the Faroese document as if it were an application, so it seems that the Icenews web site has misinterpreted the Faroese document. For that reason, I wouldn't consider the Icenews web site a reliable source. The Fishupdate web site contains basically the same information as the Icenews web site, so it is possible that Fishupdate misinterpreted the Faroese document in the same way, and if so, Fishupdate isn't a reliable source either. I have yet to see an actual application to the ECB"

We do have a problem here, we don't have any major source (its just the Faroes after all) and the only formal information is in Faroes. We have the Parliamentary document and apparently the information the English articles used came from kringvarp, also in Faroes. So, to get around this impasse, we need someone who speaks Faroes or an online translator that has Faroes. Or perhaps Icelandic? The languages are a tad similar so maybe that might work? Any Danish news sources? I'm putting out comments on relevant sister wikipedias. Suggestions welcome, especially if anyone sees something come back from the ECB.- _J.Logan`^t: 12:03, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Try to ask at the talk page for fo:Euro (kjak), Faroese language Wikipedia regarding the Euro. --Regards, Necessary Evil (talk) 12:25, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

The Faroese Parliament has not applied for membership of the ECB. This would have been a major issue in Danish (and Faroese!) media as the current currency in the Faroes is Danish Kroner. No such reports exist. The application is either bogus or a misunderstanding. --Pugilist DK (talk) 12:31, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks guys, so do you have any idea what this is? I mean, is there no intent for the euro at all, or have the just not lodged an application yet but are debating it? Thanks- _J.Logan`^t: 12:58, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

It is not easy to read, so I cannot help you with the actual content of the document. However, the Faroes have this summer been discussing how to react if Denmark should choose to join the Euro in the future. Though part of the Danish Crown, the Faroe Islands is not a member of the EU which leaves the country in some vacuum in relation to currency should Denmark join the Euro. My best guess is that the document relates to a request to join the Euro if Denmark joins the Euro. It is definitely not a request to join the Euro or a document authorising the local government to do so. --Pugilist DK (talk) 22:27, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

With just Swedish and some Old Norse, it's not very easy to read the text, but I guess the most significant part is this section (on page 2):

Vit hava sostatt vansarnar við evruni uttan til fulnar at fáa fyrimunirnar. Til ber ikki

hjá keyparum og brúkarum beinleiðis at sammeta prísir, og til ber illa at stovna konti og lán í evrum. Stóri bágin er, at til ber illa at binda seg ov langt fram tí tíðina, tí óttin er altíð, at Danmark ikki megnar at halda krónu síni uppi, ella at Danmark velur at

broyta politikk og loyva størri sveiggi, ella at okkurt annað tekur seg upp.

I only get some words of the text, but they mention accounts and loans in euros, something about Denmark and the crown and something about Denmark changing policies.

The text ends with "Á Løgtingi, 4. august 2009". I assume that this means that it was written/decided/something else in the parliament, and not sent/proposed/something else to the parliament. The word "á" looks similar to Old Norse "ᛅ" (meaning "in"), and the "i" ending in "Løgtingi" looks exactly as an Old Norse dative ending.

A section on page 1:

Løgtingið tekur tí undir við, at samráðingar verða tiknar upp við Europeiska

Samveldið og Europeiska Miðbankan um treytir fyri, at Føroyar fara at nýta evru sum

gjaldoyra.

Sometihng about talking with the EU ("Europeiska Samveldið") and the ECB ("Europeiska Miðbankan") about using the euro as currency on the Faroes.

A section on page 2:

Ríkisrættarliga er greitt, at ymsar eindir kunnu knýta seg at evruni, til dømis nýta bretsku økini á Kýprus Akrotiri og Dhekelia evruna, tó at Bretland ikki ger tað.

Something about the SBAs using the euro while the rest of the UK does not. All other non-EU locations using the euro are mentioned elsewhere in the text, both the ones using it with permission and the ones using it without permission. (Stefan2 (talk) 19:24, 26 August 2009 (UTC))

Thanks. So we can't really use it till we know what is going on. Hopefully they'll say something new soon and AP will pick up on it.- _J.Logan`^t: 12:23, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Since the Faroes do not have their own currency, they can in principle replace their "foreign" cuurency DKK with another, the euro. Just exchange all their money on the currency exchange. Like Montenegro and Kosovo did several years ago when they had the Yugoslav dinar. But probably Denmark won't allow it. This is in opposite to Iceland which have its own currency, where no one will accept their money if they abandon them.--BIL (talk) 13:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Conclusion

Today I did some additional research on the matter, and updated the section. The provided PDF file was a law submitted to the Faroese Parliament on 4 August 2009, which I managed to find was approved by the parliament's second reading on 5 November 2009. Unfortunately I also have the problem not being able to translate the PDF document directly from Faroese to Danish/English. As the langauge comprise 40% Faroese words + 30% Icelandic + 10% Norwegian + 10% Swedish + 10% Danish, I was however (as a Dane knowing the last 3 languages, and using Google to translate the Icelandic) able to compose a translation including 60% of the words. From what I could read out of it, the parliament has only decided to conduct an investigation of the possibilites for Faroese Islands to adopt the euro ahead of Denmark. As Stefan2 wrote above, it indeed mention that talks should be conducted with EU and ECB. As far as I understand, it is however so far only about investigating the options for euro adoption, and how it would impact the Faroese Islands if they adopt the euro ahead of the Danish euro adoption. At the moment, I am not aware of the outcome of those investigations, which I presume has been started after the parliaments approval on 5 November 2009. Danish Expert (talk) 11:52, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

As foregin affairs for Faroes Islands are handled by the Danish Parliament, I would expect some visible trace for subsequent (after 5 November 2009) parliamentary communications/work being done on this case by a Danish parliamentary committee. For the moment, I do not have time to look further into the matter. If someone else has the time to invistigate the case further, it would be great. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 12:16, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

ECB Report

Your latest revision differs significantly from your original revision which claimed that the report would be published in April. The latest text says it will be published after the Eurostat data is published. This is more plausible, but I still doubt that this is directly supported by linked sources. Since I don't have time to read through hundreds of pages of pdfs at the moment, can you point out which source/page/quote supports the following point:

• the ECB must wait for the official 2012 fiscal data by Eurostat is published. How do you know they don't get the information before Eurostat publishes it to the public?

If you can't source this point (that the ECB must wait until after the Eurostat publicly releases the data) then it shouldn't be in the article. Whether you think the info is WP:TRUE or not is irrelevant. Personally, I don't expect to see the report before April 22, but that's just an opinion. TDL (talk) 01:00, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I admit my first formulation was a little too hasty and a bit inaccurate (sorry for that).f But when I returned and re-instated it, then I of course made up for it, and formulated it 100% accurate and correct. It feels like however you are running a blind crusade against me, and do not trust anything I add at all. Our past very intensive talkpage debates should really by now (or actually for a long time ago) have provided you with sufficient proof, that I am a guy who care for the Wikipedia articles to display all the info in a correct way that match the reality. Several times I have fixed serious issues and added significant/important info. In the specific case that you now have opened a debate for, I actually took my time back in September 2012 carefully to read through all 3 reports, and I know for sure (as sure as I can give you a guarantee) that they support my stated point. Of course the outlined method do not specifically mention the "exact first month for publication of an evaluation report in any given calendar year", but the method explicitly highlights that evaluation of a specific country's compliance with the fiscal criteria can only be made on basis of "official data from Eurostat for the last full fiscal calendar year". As a matter of principle ECB/EMI do not accept to do any evaluation based on forecasted/estimated fiscal data. According to Eurostats official release calendar, the first full calendar fiscal data for 2012 will only be released on 22 April 2012, and hence we can conlude that ECB will only release their report after this day. This is common sence and pure logic.

To be honest I am right now increasingly tired of using my precious time to proof secondary details just for your personal amusement, so I wont waste another 1 hour now to dig out and copy the exact lines from the 3 reports into the talkpage. And yes it would probably take 1 hour, because my reading of the reports took place back in September 2012, so I no longer recall on what exact line and page they listed the note about the method for "official fiscal data". Back then I only paid attention to the end conclusion that this was the method in use, and did no personal note on what page I had been reading the info. Thus I will now limit myself, just to guarantee you that what I wrote was true. I will leave it for your personal decision if we shall continue not to list this "after 22 April 2013" info in the Latvia chapter. It is really not of any major importance to me or the article, because in only two months time we will anyway replace it with a new formulation saying "The ECB released their evaluation report on 2X April 2013, where Latvia was found to comply with all 5 criteria". Time will soon proof that I was absolutely correct when I wrote ECB will only publish their evaluation report after 22 April 2013 (because I know for sure it has been written as a fact by ECB, that this evaluation method always without any exception will follow this same old written and published procedure to await the release of official fiscal data from ECB). To further proof my point, I can also tell you that the reason why the Latvian Prime Minister mentioned that he for "technical reasons" (a direct cite from the latest article) delayed their application to March 2013, exactly is related to the situation we now discuss, that ECB told him (just like I reported to you) that their evaluation anyway will await Eurostats release of official fiscal 2012 data, so that he basically would not gain any time advantages by applying in February 2013. He would only benefit by waiting to March 2013, as all current HICP inflation and interest rate data point to the fact that it right now keeps getting better and better for each month Latvia wait to apply. For political reasons, Latvia on the other hand however clearly want to apply as soon as possible to proof how fast and efficient and fast they have managed to overcome their fiscal crisis. It is, and will always continue to be, a bragging point for the PM how well he moved his country out of the fiscal mess and crisis, and he also (in my humble opinion) deserves huge applause for that. My last comments about the meaning of the words "technical reasons" and the "Latvian context" are of course only my own personal interpretation of the case, and therefor I did never and would never write such un-sourced lines into a central part of any article at Wikipedia. I only write what we have sources available for to explicitly proof.

By the way, If I really wanted to use even more of my precious time (that I ran out off for a long time ago), I could also find you a source saying that the "European Council specifically have considered and declined the IMF proposal to develop an alternatively euro adoption process - where new EU members not fully complying with all five convergence criteria could be allowed to partly adopt the euro". This is for sure no longer a proposal that have been kept a live on any of the existing EU tables for any consideration, or something that boils in the policy development departments of EU. If it was so, we would definately have heard small quips about it -but it has not even been mentioned by lunitics (or wild speculating folks) in the past two years. The IMF proposal is totally dead. It has no support from the Council. This is how reality is, wether you like it or not. Again this is however also not a major point for me to proof (because its commons sence for the casual reader to reach the same conclusion -when we write that so far EU did not adopt the IMF proposal to change its euro adoption process), meaning that I accept you have now removed it (and changed the formulation to that instead), and in this particular case I also agree with you that we indeed needed a source to further back the info according to how I had formulated the line (or at least leaving a cn mark, for other editors to find and add this additional reference). But again it is only a minor detail we are dealing with here, and I can perfectly live with the fact that you now removed the "new info" provided by my slightly changed formulation of the line (despite both of us are fully aware that the way I had formulated the line accurately reflects how the reality actually is, and that it would be possible for any person to also find a source for it, if he had endless resources to dedicate hours of his precious time to read through all the European Council and European Commision meeting reports from the years in 2009 and 2010. Once again, it would however be like shooting flies with cannon-balls, if some of us should really jump out to use so much time just for proofing a secondary unimportant detail. So please leave it out. I accept all of your changed formulations and removals. Please spare me for your complaints, and let's move on with some of the other much more important work we need to do. In example we urgently need to add important info in several articles which are directly absent, which are right now more important for us right now to use our time on. The most articles I read at Wikipedia actually suffers mostly from absent info (meaning no editor took time to dig up and add the info yet) or "low quality/inaccurate sources" (meaning the found sources are not accurately reflecting the subject/story they were supposed to reflect - or represent biased angles in complicated situations where minimum two sides of the story needs to be reflected to qualify for a neutral fact based report considering the pros and cons). I of course do not complain about any of your past corrections or re-formulations for some of my recently added and improved formulations, so that they narrowly reflect the wording of the source. If something needs to be reformulated, then it is good we reformulate it, and each time when I leave one of our many recent discussions, they have always ended up with a better final result compared to before my new material was added to the article.

So I do not complain about the fact that you very often reformulate my newly added material. In general, I just want to remind you, that the small discussions you and I have about how accurate formulations should be (compared to the formulation of the provided reference) or the number of references I should add for all of my points (of which we always find out after a long discussion that my applied logic and common sence actually could be backed up by additional sources) are only minor problems, compared to what you find elsewhere of flaws and missing stuff sticking out all around Wikipedia. "Missing material" and use of "low quality references" constitute a huge pile of far bigger problems out in the wiki-field. So what I try to say here is, that I admire your high quality standard in regards of how accurate you want my formulations to be, but you should perhaps also now and then consider at least to spend some equal amount of time to evaluate all the negative impact and damage done to several of our wikipedia articles by the negative impact of "missing material" and "lines listed in an imperfect order - that when written one by one are correct - but when you read them together in a paragraph accidently insinuates the reality is different compared to what it actually is". I feel this is something that would return higher yields for the quality of our articles (compared to spending your time always to reformulate my lines), or at least deserve to be looked into with an equal amount of dedicated energy and effort compared to what you have previously showcased towards fixing some of my so-called "inaccurate formulations"). Keep up your good work. No offence meant. But let's now move on with more important tasks. Best regards, Danish Expert (talk) 00:38, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Well - this is just to bump a short "appoligy note" for my outburst above - written yesterday. I was kind of in a stressed and somewhat over-sensitive mood yesterday, and when reading my essay today I can see it was clearly an incident of slamming you a little too hard and unjustified. Sorry for doing that, TDL. The truth is, that you (beside of doing direct reformulations on most of my contributions - that we happen to discuss a lot from time to time) you also do great work on other fields. So it is all good here - you are just sometimes a somewhat annoying perfectionist. Please do not take my outburst above personal. I just had to release some stressed steam out of my ears. Keep up all your good work, and just ignore the personal stuff I wrote in my reply above. :-) Best regards, Danish Expert (talk) 21:25, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Euro adoption in 2014/2015 for Latvia and Lithuania ?

We currently have a lot statistical uncertainty related to the forcast data, displayed by the convergence criteria template in the article. The uncertainty mostly relates to the calculation of reference value limits for HICP inflation and long term interest rates, as per the end of the next evaluation month March 2013, where it shall be determined if Latvia+Lithuania complied with the convergence criteria for euro adoption per 1 January 2014. Danish Expert (talk) 01:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

So, would you like to expand the article, change it, both? It seems to me that you know what you're talking about, and that there arent any objections. What's the hold up? --U5K0'sTalk_{Make WikiLove not WikiWar} 22:51, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for reply. Currently the hold up, is only a lack of recent references to reflect my points here at the talkpage. I can guarantee all my info here at the talkpage is correct, but for the moment it only qualify as WP:OR. I hope at some point of time, that Swedbank or perhaps other analysis institutes will upload references that reflect my points here at the talkpage. In that case we would have an appropriate reference also to include the info in the article. In example, Swedbank published this analysis report in August 2012. My fealing is, that if/when Swedbank publish their next updated version of the report, then it will basicly be a copy of my points here at the talkpage, and then we can add the info into the article itself as we now have a reference. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 23:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Okay, after giving it some additional thought, I have realised it already now is acceptable and helpful to transfer a small part of the findings here at the talkpage into the article. Thus, I have just written the new subchapter: Reference values in 2013, featuring a table with the forecast HICP + Interest rate reference values for each of the upcomming four quarters in 2013. The idea is then to replace all forecast figures with the actually recorded figures, as the year progress. In that way the readers now have a small helpful table in the article, to track and see how the reference limits develop during the year. As we have a complex situation in 2013 where Greece at first will be approved as HICP benchmark country and a bit later disqualified as "HICP outlier"; and as the same situation apply to Ireland in regards of suddenly no longer being an outlier for the interest rate benchmark, I think these complex/confusing situations merit we now have this small table in the article - to explain and map what happens. Danish Expert (talk) 20:03, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Situation for Lithuania

As per the latest Economic Forecast from November 2012, it appear Lithuania will be slightly above the reference values for budget deficit + HICP inflation + Interest rate criteria by the end of March 2013. It should however be noted, that ECB most likely will approve their budget deficit if it ends at the forecast 3.2%, because of the special provision outlining that deficit levels close to 3% (meaning 3.0-3.5%) are also approved if the country has been continously improving its deficit in the past years. Looking at the records, Lithuania indeed continously and significantly manged to improve their deficit, going from 9.4% (2009) to 7.2% (2010) to 5.5% (2011) and 3.2% (2012). So it is as good as certain, that ECB will consider Lithuania complied with the deficit criteria in 2012, if the final recorded deficit value for 2012 ends in the interval 3.0-3.5%. On that note, the final recorded deficit value will be published 22 April 2013 at this webpage.

The remaining challenges for Lithuania is to comply with the interest rate criteria and HICP criteria. In the past 8 months, Lithuania had a long term interest rate only 0.37% above the one in Latvia. If we look isolated for the 1 month average in November, it was however 0.79% above the one in Latvia. So it will indeed be a bit more difficult for Lithuania to comply with the long term interest rate criteria. BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE, as the country only need for one of the two best reference value scenarios to materialize -as described below for Latvia: Meaning it would look positive, if we get the scenario where Greece+Sweden+Latvia have the lowest HICP, or alternatively if Ireland replace Latvia while no longer being treated as an "interest rate outlier" to ignore.

The final challenge for Lithuania will be the HICP inflation. Here it should be noted the November 2012 forecast placed it 0.5% above the limit with the value 3.35%. But if we look at the average HICP scored in the past 8 months, it is slightly better at 3.01%. So after all, it will not be impossible for Lithuania perhaps also to get it below the reference limit currently at 2.83%. As of December 2012 I would overall say, that the likelyhood for Lithuania to comply with all 5 criteria in April 2013 will be around 33%. In order to fully comply, Lithuania will need:

1. To score a significantly lower HICP, compared to the forecasted figures by the European Commission: Q4-2012 (3.8%) and Q1-2013 (3.6%).
2. One of the two most favorable scenarios should materialize for the calculation of a higher interest rate reference limit.

Danish Expert (talk) 22:14, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

As a short update for Lithuania, I can already now report, that the average HICP for Q4-2012 only was 2.97% (with Oct=3.2%, Nov=2.8%, Dec=2.9%). If this tendency will continue for Q1-2013, Lithuania is headed to end with an average for the entire reference year on 3.0%. In other words it will be extremely close to the allowed reference limit by the end of March 2013 (forecasted to be 2.7%), and right now it is impossible to predict with certainty if it will be above/below by the end of June 2013. One of the big uncertainties is the situation in Greece. First of all, we do not know for sure how much the recently introduced tax hikes in Greece will elevate their HICP and thus the reference limit. Along with this uncertainty we also have the paradox, that the moment deflation starts to kick in for Greece, which currently is forecasted to happen in Q2-2013, their 1-year average HICP will drop to a level below 0.5% and the country will then likely be disqualified as a benchmark country for calculation of the HICP reference limit, meaning it will then instead be calculated upon a country with a much higher HICP -resulting in the limit suddenly being calculated to be 0.3% higher. Currently this Greek deflation senario is expected to happen sometime in 2013, but it is difficult to say exactly when (it could happen as early as by the end of June, or perhaps first by the end of December). This last scenario is described in more details in the section below for Latvia. When taking all this into account, I am now 99% certain that Lithuania will qualify with 4 out of 5 criteria by the end of March 2013 (only missing the HICP target). Subsequently my own personal estimate say, that Lithuania will stand a 50% chance also to qualify with the HICP target in Q2-2013, and almost certainly will have qualified with the HICP target no later than by the end of December 2013. It will for sure be interesting to follow how all HICP values progress in 2013. Stay tuned. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 07:45, 18 January 2013 (UTC)

According to the official "22 Feb forecast", Greece will per 30 June 2013 indeed as I earlier predicted, be declared to be an "HICP outlier" (due to a HICP 2.2% below EU-average). This will mean that starting from 30 June 2013, Greece will become excluded as a benchmark country in the calculation of HICP reference value limits. The forecast show that the impact this will have on the limit, is that it will be raised from 2.4% at 31 May 2013 - to 2.9% at 30 June 2013. As the Lithuanian 12m-average HICP for June 2013 has been forecasted to be around 2.75%, this will indeed be the first month where Lithuania now is forecasted to comply with all 5 convergence criteria. At the moment it appear the Lithuanian PM has decided the country shall only apply for euro adoption of 1 Jan 2015. Perhaps this is also for practical reasons - because if he submits an application in July he needs to complete a lot of the preparational work very fast to have the fysical coins ready only 6 months later. My advice to the Lithuanian PM would therefor be, that he in July 2013 submit an application for euro adoption on 1 Jan 2015. Because this would give him sufficient time for the preparations, and it is better to be approved for euro adoption at the first possible chance, as you never know how the convergence figures will start to develop 1 year from now. If the Lithuanian PM decides not to submit any euro adoption applications in 2013, this will however (in my opinion) also mean there is no reason to keep on updating our article's convergence table with new figures each month (as we then have a situation where the changed figures will have no real world impact for any of the EU member states with a euro derogation). Danish Expert (talk) 12:13, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Situation for Latvia

In regards of Latvia there is absolutely no problem to comply with budget deficit + HICP inflation criteria, but on the other hand the country will face a close race to comply with the interest rate criteria already in April 2013. This challenge is related to the fact, that the reference value according to the November forecast report, now is likely only to be calculated only on the benchmark basis of Sweden+Germany, which both are known to have extremely low interest rates. The Economic Forecast from May 2012 had predicted Sweden+Spain as benchmark basis, and in that case the interest rate reference value would have been almost 2% higher (due to the high interest rates in Spain).

The compliance with HICP inflation criteria and Interest rate criteria is however a very complex matter to predict/forecast, as the reference values basicly change on a monthly basis, AND the fact that Latvia is entitled to ask for a renewed compliance check basicly after each month in 2013. This mean, that if the country does not fully comply with the HICP+Interest rate criteria in April 2013, they can in principle ask for a renewed criteria check again in May/June. Looking at the recent trend for the Latvian interest rate it in average currently decline with 0.4% each month and was at 3.5% in October 2012. If this trend continue, Latvia will be headed around May 2013, to post an average interest rate for the past year at a level below 3.6%.

Just to make the matter even more complicated, we also still have uncertainty if it will be Sweden+Germany or perhaps Sweden+"Another country" ending up as benchmark countries for the interest rate reference values. The benchmark countries will be selected as the 3 EU countries with the lowest HICP inflation ratios (excluding those classified as "inflation outliers" and/or lacking complete financial market access: meaning that Greece+Ireland are excluded). As of November 2012 (because HICP values are at rather equal levels for many countries), there is also a possibility the second benchmark country could also be France/Latvia/Denmark instead of Germany. If it ends with Denmark, it would lower the interest rate reference value and get slightly worse for Latvia. If it ends with France, it would increase the interest rate reference value and get slightly better for Latvia. And finally if it ends with Latvia itself qualifying as a benchmark country, this will mean that Latvia will have no problem at all to qualify with the criteria.

To make a long story short, we have increased uncertainty on the outlook for Latvia to comply with the interest rate criteria in April 2013. But if Latvia do not comply in April 2013, they are very much likely (based on the figures in the Economic Autumn Forecast report) instead to comply with all criteria in May/June 2013. So in worst case the compliance date will only be delayed a couple of months, and this would still be soon enough to pave the way for the scheduled euro adoption on 1 January 2014. Danish Expert (talk) 01:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

To supplement my info above - Here is the current standing after the first 7 months in the reference year (April-October 2012), in regards of the EU members having the lowest average value for the monthly recorded annual HICP figures:

• Sweden (0.94%), Greece (0.96%), Latvia (2.07%), Germany (2.10%), Ireland (2.11%), France (2.27%), Denmark (2.30%).

If this standing after 7 months also will apply after 12 months, it will actually be Sweden+Greece+Latvia qualifying as benchmark countries selected for the calculation of reference values (criteria limits). And in that case, Latvia will have no problem at all to qualify with all criteria in April 2013. Danish Expert (talk) 12:55, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The above figures shall be compared to the following "lowest 12m-average annual HICP in April 2013" figures forecasted by the Economic Autumn report:

• Greece (0.75%), Sweden (0.95%), Ireland (1.95%), Germany (2.03%), France (2.10%), Latvia (2.15%), Denmark (2.18%).

As you can see from the figures they are rather close to the already recorded average after the first 7 out of 12 months. Greece+Sweden will for sure be the two lowest scoring countries. But except from that, it is impossible to forecast/predict the order of the countries. Danish Expert (talk) 23:04, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Another important reference value uncertainty that I forgot to mention above, is the fact that: Greece is currently no longer likely to be classified as a "HICP outlier". Unfortunately no exact criteria/definition of "HICP outliers" has been written by ECB/EC. So our only option in the attempt to forecast "HICP outliers", is to check the practise on how ECB previously selected "HICP outliers". Looking through the previously published convergence reports, revealed some previous examples where in one case Finland was not treated as an HICP outlier when it scored 0.4% (being 1.7% below the EU-average), while all countries in the past decade scoring a HICP more than 2.0% below the EU-average - consistently were defined as HICP-outliers. The criteria definition for "HICP outliers" is, that the HICP shall be: significantly below the HICP in other Member States, and at the same time it shall be possible to conclude the country's price developments have been strongly affected by exceptional factors (i.e. severe wage cuts and/or a strong recession).

In regards of Greece, the country is certain to comply with the second condition to be classified as a "HICP outlier", but due to increased VAT hikes recently introduced in Greece, the HICP will no longer surge down to the previously forecasted deflation figures. Instead the Greek HICP is now forecasted to end at 1.08%, being only around 1.4% lower than the EU-average (2.45%). If we compare with the Finland-example the difference to the EU-average needs to be minimum 1.8% in order to fulfill the first condition of having a HICP siginificantly below HICPs in other EU member states.

When it comes to the "long term interest rate" outlier definition we again lack a precise and exact definition. Here outliers are defined as countries with a long-term interest rate: significantly above comparable rates in other eurozone member states, and at the same time -during the entire or just a part of the reference year- had no complete funding access to financial markets (which will be the case for as long as a country receives disbursements from a sovereign state bailout program). This criteria will mean, that both Greece+Ireland are likely to qualify as "Interest rate outliers". The last bailout disbursement for Ireland has been scheduled for Q4-2013, so the country satisfy the second condition of having no complete access to financial markets. But if the average of the Irish interest rate suddenly improves, so that the average is no longer "significantly above the eurozone average", then it will from that point of time no longer be classified as a "interest rate outlier". Again the word "significantly" has not been quantified by EC/ECB, so this is definately an uncertainty to keep an eye on. For comparison, ECB classified Ireland as an "interest rate outlier" (with significant rates above other eurozone states) in April 2012, at a time where Ireland's average interest rate was 9.11% and the eurozone's average interest rate was 5.78% (and the eurozones GDP-weighted average interest rate only 4.4%). By the end of October 2012 the same rates were respectively 6.83% for Ireland and 5.72% in average for the eurozone (and the eurozones GDP-weighted average interest rate only 4.0%). According to the practice in the ECB 2012 convergence report, the average used for comparison when deciding if a country is a "interest rate outlier" is the GDP-weighted average interest rate for the eurozone. As Ireland by the end of October 2012 scored an average still around 2.8% above the GDP-weighted eurozone average, the country is based on that still likely to be classified as an "interest rate outlier" (as of October 2012). But given the current downward trend for Irish interest rates, this is just not 100% certain also to be the case in April 2013.

To sum up all the uncertainties, it is clear that for Latvia the worst case scenario would be if Sweden+Greece+Germany all qualify for the HICP reference value benchmark, which then would fall to 2.83%. Latvia will have no problem to comply with the lower HICP limit as it is forecasted only to be 2.15% in Latvia. The challenge for the country in that scenario will however be to comply with limit for the interest rates, where the reference group will be reduced only to count Sweden+Germany, resulting in a reference limit only around 3.46% (calculated as the 7-month average on 31 October 2012). Latvia's 10-yr government bond yield is currently going south, and if it keeps falling with the current momentum the country is set to score average values below 3.46% in July 2013 at the latest. So only in the worst case scenario Latvia will not comply in April 2013, and even in that case, Latvia can then instead manage to comply around July 2013, and this should still be soon enough not to delay the euro adoption from the scheduled target date on 1 January 2014. Danish Expert (talk) 11:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

My ongoing quest to search for reliable HICP predictions, in order to forecast the size of the "Euro-adoption" reference values as per the forth-comming evaluation in April 2013, is also troubled by the fact, that some countries will implement extra tax hikes per 1 January 2013 (as part of their recently implemented "fiscal consolidation" measures). In such countries the HICP figures will inevitably get an extra ellevating increase in Q1-2013. And not even the most recent "Autumn economic forecast" from the Commission, has taken such tax hikes into account, as most of the "2013 fiscal budgets" had not been passed ahead of the data cut-off date (19 October 2012) for the report. The bottom-line is that all sorts of "HICP forecasts" should be regarded to include a lot of uncertainty. By the end of the day, the only thing that counts are the actual figures. So I have decided to continue reporting here at the talkpage, how the actually recorded HICP average for the reference year progress. After the first 8 months of the reference year (April-November) we now have:

• Greece (0.89%), Sweden (0.93%), Latvia (2.00%), Ireland (2.05%), Germany (2.08%), France (2.19%), Denmark (2.29%).

If this standing after 8 months also will apply after 12 months, it will instead be Greece+Sweden+Latvia qualifying as benchmark countries selected for the calculation of the HICP reference value (criteria limit), and in that case the limits would instead be calculated to 2.77% for HICP and 4.95% for the long-term interest rate. But if the Commision's forecasted figures will proof to be correct, the criteria limits will be 2.83% for HICP and 3.51% for interest rate. As the Latvian average interest rate after the first eight months of the reference year is at 4.40%, with the current rate 3.1% as of 14 December, it looks to be a safe bet that the yearly average will fall even below the 3.51% threshold in 2013. If it shall happen already in March 2013, then Latvia will however need their interest rate to decline to 1.7% in average for the last four months of the reference year. This is not likely to happen. So Latvia shall hope it get a lower HICP than Ireland/Germany and qualify as the third lowest HICP country, in order to stand a chance to comply with all criteria in March 2013. Should they fail to do so, it is however still likely the year-average of their interest rate will decline below 3.5% around May-August 2013. So even in worst case, Latvia stands a good chance to comply with all euro adoption criteria sometime in 2013. Danish Expert (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

As mentioned in one of my earlier replies above, then even in the scenario where Ireland should score a lower HICP than Latvia, it becomes more and more likely that Ireland starting from March 2013, will NO LONGER be treated as an "interest rate outlier". If everything stays equal on the markets during the last four months of the reference year, then Irelands yearly average for the interest rate will end at 5.51% on 30 March, which will only be 1.79% above the GDP-weighted eurozone average at 3.72%. So despite the fact that Ireland still have no complete market access, their Interest rate will in that case perhaps not be regarded as being "significantly above the average", and in that case Ireland will still count as a benchmark country. This scenario, where Greece+Sweden+Ireland scores the lowest HICP but only with Greece to be disqualified for the "interest rate" benchmark, would result in the interest rate reference value ending at a level around 5.5%. So this could also be a scenario where Latvia could manage to comply with all criteria already in March 2013. All in all, it now seems likely that the only scenario with a real potential to threath a 100% compliance for Latvia in March 2013, would be if Germany/Denmark at that point of time will score the third-lowest HICP in EU. It will be very interesting to see how the figures stands, after the next couple of months. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 11:28, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

• HICP 12m-average (Jan-Dec): Sweden (0.939%), Greece (1.043%), Ireland (1.922%), Germany (2.138%), France (2.222%), Latvia (2.290%), Denmark (2.374%).
• HICP 9m-average (Apr-Dec)......: Greece (0.82%), Sweden (0.94%), Latvia (1.96%), Ireland (2.01%), Germany (2.07%), France (2.11%), Denmark (2.24%).

As the figures above indicate, it is now likely Latvia on 31 March 2013 will qualify as the country with the third lowest HICP. Whether or not it will be Latvia/Ireland who qualify as the third lowest HICP, will however no longer make any difference for Latvia's compliance with the interest rate limit, as Ireland starting from 31 January 2013 no longer will be treated as an interest rate outlier. To be exact, the interest rate situation as of 24 January 2013 show a yearly average at 3.89% for the eurozone and 5.89% for Ireland (meaning the difference is very likely to decline below the magic 2.00% in a very few days). It is only if Germany/France/Denmark qualify as the third lowest HICP that Latvia+Lithuania will get a problem to qualify with the interest rate reference limit; and this is no longer likely to happen. Danish Expert (talk) 19:57, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

As a bonus info, I have also calculated that if the HICP annual rate for January 2013 in Ireland will be less than 1.8% bigger compared to the measured figure for the same month in Germany/France, it will defend its third rank in regards of the 12-month moving average as per 31 January 2013. In other words, this is 99.9% likely to happen (as the Irish HICP in the past two months only was 1.6% and 1.7% - and if this level is remained for January it would need to be negative in Germany/France if any of these two countries should capture the third lowest rank in the HICP statistic), meaning we can now reasonably assume that Ireland will be part of both the HICP benchmark and interest rate benchmark as of 31 January 2013. Unfortunately Eurostat just delayed their next release of HICP figures only to happen 28 February, so we have to wait a little while to get it officially confirmed. I will of course return already on 21 February to update this note when CSO announces the Irish HICP for January Until then, you just have to trust my calculations here at the talkpage. If the figures will be as my estimate now show they will be, then Latvia will comply with all 5 convergence criteria already as of 31 Jan 2013. Stay tuned, to see if it will go as I have preached. :-) Danish Expert (talk) 21:46, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

This is exciting. All the HICPs for January 2013 has now been announced! As a follow-up note to my reply above (and due to the very late release date by Eurostat), I will now list the 12m-average for the 7 EU countries with the lowest HICP-average:

• HICP 12m-average (Feb-Jan): Greece (0.875%), Sweden (0.931%), Ireland (1.936%), Latvia (2.054%), Germany (2.104%), France (2.122%), Denmark (2.224%).

As the figures show, Ireland managed still to defend its third place for the 12m-moving average. This status quo however entailed a huge impact on the interest rate reference value limit as of 31 Jan 2013, as it was revealed by Eurostat's 12m-average interest rates that Ireland starting from January 2013 no longer will be defined as an interest rate outlier for the ECB's reference value limit calculation! Because just as I had predicted in my post above, the 12m-average for Ireland ended at 5.88%, which is now only 1.99% above the GDP-weighted eurozone average at 3.89%, and thus within the magic 2.00% limit above the eurozone average where the benchmark stop to ignore the data-point as an "outlier". This mean that the official interest rate reference value limit for 31 Jan 2013, now shall be calculated on basis of both Sweden (1.60%) + Ireland (5.88%), and as a consequence will be 5.74% for January 2013. As Latvia for the same month posted an average interest rate of only 4.35%, they are now by a huge margin within this limit, and thus have now for the first time since its EU accession date managed to comply with all 5 convergence criteria. As the stats are only becomming better for Latvia, when they will be officially evaluated for compliance here next month in March, it is now a certainty that Latvia will: Qualify for euro adoption on 1 Jan 2014. Congratulations to Latvia! :-) Danish Expert (talk) 13:53, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

"First plan drafted"

I don't understand what you mean by this. What exactly happened on the dates you recently changed to "First plan drafted"? Was that the date that the plan was first proposed? Was that the first plan, but there have since been new plans? And do any of these plans/dates have sources? TDL (talk) 02:49, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, in the "Changeover plan" column I have recently changed the word "approved" to "first plan drafted". The word "approved" was originally chosen by JLogan (talk) back on 28 December 2007; and beside of listing this info without a proper reference for it - I think it really caused some confusion. I am rather sure, that what the previous editor meant by his words, was that he wanted to note the date when the "coordinating institution" published their first euro changeover plan for the state and submitted it to the government. Hence I changed the word "approved" to "first plan drafted". I think it is important both to remember and highlight, that the changeover plan can be subject to change, until it has been written and passed by a formal "euro adoption law". Hence, I have in the same column also started to list the date of "Law submitted" - which will later of course change to "Law approved" (when it has been approved). Best regards, Danish Expert (talk) 14:13, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed that it's confusing. If all that happened on this day was that the plan was first proposed, do we really need to mention it? And how do you know that it was the first plan? Why not just replace this date with the date of "Law submitted" and ultimately the date of "Law approved"? TDL (talk) 21:35, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Sorry for the late reply. I first had to search the web a bit, before being able to come up with a qualified opinion. Apparently all countries with a "euro derogation" (without euro opt-outs, or a defacto euro opt-out as for Sweden), have been requested either by a Council/Commission decision to formulate a "strategy and/or national plan for their euro changeover". This mean we can now reasonably expect to find such reports for all 7 states that currently attempt to qualify for euro adoption. Apparently the "national plans" I now refer to, shall be approved by the government. In example, the Polish government approved their "euro adoption strategy" in 2010 and then a "national euro changeover plan" in 2011. Basically this document will have published all the data we currently are typing into the wikitable (except for the "official target date" + "ERM-II entry date"). The moment a country adopt their "national euro changeover plan" as a law, the conditions for the changeover can be considered to have been finaly set. My qualified opinion goes, that we should list those "national plans" (incl. a link) for all the 7 states in concern (except for Latvia where they now have transformed it into a law). The "national euro changeover plan" does not by-it-self say anything about how far the preparation process for euro adoption has progressed, but for those 6 countries in concern that still haven't passed a euro adoption law, it is still a great data source for how the euro changeover is currently envisaged/planned. So we should start to search for these documents and add them as main references for Lithuania + Poland + Bulgaria + Czech Republic + Romania + Hungary. Danish Expert (talk) 12:45, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

That seems like a good idea. But isn't that what we already do? I agree that it definitely needs sources though. However, once the "plan" is adopted as a "law", I think we should replace the details of the "plan" with the details of the "law". It would be very confusing if we listed the details of all the various iterations of the plan and the law. TDL (talk) 19:18, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Lithuania's deadline for compliance with all euro adoption criteria

Lithuania's government has recently adopted the key political target to adopt the euro 1 January 2015. Recently I also added to the article this short extra logic objective observation, that in order to do so, a full compliance with all five convergence criteria will need to be achieved: no later than 30 June 2014. This observation is based upon our knowledge about the length of the approval procedure, that always will entail the following 7 steps:

1. Approval by ECB report + Commission report (they will need minimum 1 month to write the report after the application has been filed).
2. Eurogroup meeting is held where the 17 euro finance ministers report whether they recommend euro adoption (meeting intervals: 1 time per month).
3. Approval by ECOFIN Council (meeting is held with the 28 EU finance ministers, usually on the next day after the Eurogroup meeting).
4. Approval by European Council of Head of States (5 EU summits have been scheduled in 2014: Feb+Mar+May+Jun+Oct).
5. Recommendation submitted by the EU Parliament's ECON committee (passed by a committee vote).
6. All 28 EU Member States shall meet within one of the resort areas of the Council of the European Union and reconfirm their political support for euro adoption.
7. ECOFIN Council shall meet and make a final decision based on collection of the results from all 6 previous steps. At this final meeting the euro exchange rate will also be irrevocably fixed.

The above 7 steps for the approval process will always take minimum 3 months to conduct. In comparision, the current Latvian approval process has been scheduled to last 4 months, with their application submitted in March 2013 and EU summit approval in June 2013 followed by the final ECOFIN approval and fixing of the euro exchange rate in July 2013. Below I will transform the approval process into the context of extracting the last criteria compliance deadline for Lithuania, if they shall indeed succeed to achieve euro adoption on 1 Jan 2015.

Deadline for Lithuania to comply with all criteria - in order to achieve euro adoption on 1 Jan 2015

As any country having submitted an euro adoption application can not initiate their "euro coin minting" (which is a process that Latvian experts descriped would require minimum 3 months of working time for the minting company - but if needed can be speeded up by other countries to be completed within 2 months), and due to the country's legal demand for shops to post price signs that display both the price in euro and local currency well ahead of the euro introduction (which is something Lithuania have decided shall be in place no later than 2 months ahead of the euro adoption day), it is obvious that Lithuania in order to achieve their aim for euro adoption on 1 Jan 2015, now will need a final ECOFIN Council approval that irrevoacably fixes their euro changeover rate by the end of October 2014 (at the latest). This will mean the European Council of Head of States at the latest will need to approve their euro adoption at their preceeding summit in the first half of October 2014, based on an ECOFIN council decision in September 2014 which again need to be based on published ECB+EC reports in August 2014, that ultimately will entail the requirement of an official application submitted in July 2014 (which mean the latest data cut-off deadline will need to be 30 June 2014).

Conclusion: According to the outlined approval procedure described above, Lithuania will in order to achieve euro adoption 1 Jan 2015, need to comply with all 5 criteria no later than as of 30 June 2014, so that they can submit their euro adoption application in July 2014, receive their technical ECB approval in August 2014 and the first ECOFIN council approval in September 2014, followed by the Euro Summit approval in the first half of October 2014 and the final ECOFIN council approval by the end of October 2014. The outlined process of course reflect the last possible convergence deadline for Lithuania, and it should be underlined it would of course be preferred (if possible), that Lithuania instead apply in March/April 2014, receive the ECB report and first ECOFIN council approval in May 2014, followed by the Euro Summit approval in June 2014 and the final ECOFIN council approval in July 2014.

Based on all above and with support by WP:COMMONSENSE, I suggest we reinstate my note that the aimed for Lithuanian euro adoption on 1 Jan 2015 will mean they need to comply with all euro adoption criteria no later than 30 June 2014. If you insist it will require a specific source to list this deadline, then in the alternative I will suggest we for a start write a more general observation into the lead, that for instance could sound like: Any country that aspire for euro adoption, will normally need to comply with all criteria no later than 6 months ahead of their euro adoption target date, due to the time subsequently needed for EU to complete the political approval process for euro adoption (typically lasting 3-4 months), and the states subsequent time needed ahead of the euro adoption date (typically 2-3 months) in order to complete the minting of euro coins and order shops to display dual price signs throughout a certain period in advance. Danish Expert (talk) 11:16, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

WP:OR. TDL (talk) 20:09, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

I accept your WP:OR argument. As usualy, my inclusion of the extra "WP:OR observation" was only made because I assumed it would be possible at a later stage, that either myself or another editor possibly could dig up a reference for the matter (i.e. a guideline published by the EC with advice for candidate countries when it was for practical reasons too late to apply for euro adoption for the upcomming 1 Jan). Today I have searched for exactly that, in order to satisfy your reasonable demand for a direct source, but unfortunately in vain, which of course is also why I now accept we drop to note such deadline mentioning in the article. My main driving force behind noting it previously, was because the casual reader do not realise the preparational process ahead of euro adoption will always need to start several months ahead of the euro adoption date, and hence the euro adoption approval also need to be granted several months ahead. I have now managed to satisfy this main point for the reader to be aware off, by instead noting general info about each country's practical preparation process in the Summary of adoption progress chapter. For now, I think we do not need also to describe how the "political approval process works in detail" in this article, as this level of detail is more appropriately covered by the country specific articles about euro adoption. FYI, I plan soon to copy/past a modified version of the above 7 point schedule into the Latvian euro coins article, solely based on the Latvian reference and its note of specific months where they expecte the steps to completed. Danish Expert (talk) 14:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, this is an excellent solution. TDL (talk) 04:27, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

Bulgaria

Did Bulgaria join European Exchange Rate Mechanism? The picture in this article shows that Bulgaria's currency is pegged to euro. http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2013/11/european-economy-guide 2.127.51.47 (talk) 15:10, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

No, the Bulgarian lev has been pegged to the euro since before Bulgaria joined the EU. TDL (talk) 20:53, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Economic information for non-eurozone countries

Where can I find the economic information to change the economic data of the countries that are outside from, the Eurozone? — Preceding unsigned comment added by EuropeanFederationNow (talk • contribs) 19:26, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Bulgaria II

[...];that would mean that the fifth criteria would be met in 2015 at the earliest, with a subsequent adoption of the euro on 1 January 2016. This is nonsense: If Bulgaria is entering the ERM II in 2015 it cannot adopt the euro earlier then 1 January 2017. --134.176.204.116 (talk) 16:52, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

The sentence doesn't say they would enter ERM II in 2015, it says that the earliest that the fifth criteria (two years in ERMII) could be met is 2015. If they met this criteria in 2015, adoption would be 1.1.2016. The sentence is now out of date as it was written last year, so everything needs to be advanced by a year. TDL (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Criteria in 2014

Which sources for convergence criteria are valid enough to let its values be used in the tables? The numbers I can see in the Eurostat are less exact than the ones the previous experts here used, and attempts to reconstruct more exact values would probably be OR. So, under which circumstances is anyone allowed to update the tables? Or do we have to accept the numbers getting more and more outdated? Ambi Valent (talk) 23:29, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

• From my OR calculations based on Eurostat and the winter 2014 report with its 2013 projections, of the 10 non-euro countries there would be 5 countries that succeed in all four main criteria: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania and Sweden. 3 countries fail only in one criterium: Romania on HICP inflation, Hungary on interest rate and Poland on deficit-to-GDP. Croatia and the United Kingdom fail on HICP inflation, deficit-to-GDP and debt-to-GDP. Of course, only Denmark and Lithuania are ERM II members, and Denmark has an opt-out, so only Lithuania is looking fine to join the euro in January 2015. Due to the two years of necessary membership in ERM II the next states could enter the eurozone in January 2017 at the earliest (except Denmark, which could join immediately since only the opt-out is keeping it outside the eurozone). Ambi Valent (talk) 22:59, 18 March 2014 (UTC)