Czech euro adoption retreats further into distance
The media coverage surrounding the problems in the eurozone has - rightly – focused on the seventeen countries that use it, as they attempt to shore up efforts to stop the sovereign debt crisis from spreading. But what of the ten that don’t, and especially those new members like the Czech Republic, which must – at some point - adopt the euro under the terms of their EU membership?
The Czech Republic – like all new EU members – must give up its national currency and adopt the euro, under a clause in the 1992 Maastricht Treaty which created it. It doesn’t, however, say when, just when certain economic criteria are met. But since joining the EU in 2004, successive Czech governments have pushed back a target date for adoption; the current government says it won’t even set a date, as it’s not clear the euro will survive long enough for the Czechs to join it.
Premier Petr Nečas says the euro is now such a different animal – he calls it a debt union, not a currency union – that the Czech people should be asked in a referendum whether they really want to give up the crown. That referendum would almost certainly fail, at least if the current opinion polls are to be believed. Petr Mach is the leader of the eurosceptic Free Citizens Party. He wants a negotiated opt-out from euro adoption similar to that enjoyed by Britain and Denmark.
“We can see that sharing one currency in a really large and heterogeneous area is economically harmful. Now it’s harmful for Greece – Greece cannot go out of recession, because it shares a currency with Germany and other countries. And in the future this can be harmful for the Czech Republic and for other countries. So from an economic point of view it’s better to have your own currency.”
The lone Czech voices in favour of deeper European integration – including euro adoption – say the government’s ‘wait and see’ attitude is a cover for a deeper, more fundamental hostility to Europe. Jiří Pehe was an adviser to former president Václav Havel.
“Czech provincialism plays an important role here. The Czechs – because of their history, because of being geographically where they are and having been occupied many times in their history – has this very careful attitude to anything that comes from the outside world. Certainly, when things work, they are willing to accept them. When they do not work, or when they do not seem to work for them, they became immediately very cautious. And this is true both about the common currency and the European Union.”
