The Czech Republic is not ready to meet the criteria for joining the Eurozone and the government should refrain from setting a date for adopting the euro, for now, a document presented by the finance ministry and the Czech National Bank says.

The Czech Republic, one of the seven EU countries that do not use the common EU currency, committed to adopting the euro when it joined the bloc in 2004, though it is up to member states to decide on the date for introducing the euro.

But “the Czech Republic is very unlikely to meet the benchmarks of any of the Maastricht criteria in 2022 or 2023,” the document presented Wednesday writes.

In November, Prime Minister Petr Fiala confirmed to journalists that the country will not adopt the euro under his current government, adding that it has “not agreed on adopting the euro because we do not consider it realistic at the moment.”

Still, the government wants to allow companies to keep their accounts in euros, he added.

(Aneta Zachová | EURACTIV.cz)

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