Poland to seek assurances over euro entry

Poland will seek assurances that the euro zone is ready to take in new countries, which it wants included in the European Union's 10-year economic policy plan to be published this year, a Polish diplomat said on Friday.

The demand may signal Polish fears that some euro zone countries are reluctant to let more countries adopt the euro in the wake of the economic crisis to avoid a possible repeat of problems caused for the currency area by Greece's ballooning budget gap.

As the economic crisis struck, Poland abandoned its plan to join the euro in 2012. Officials now talk about 2015 as the earliest euro adoption date for Poland, the biggest ex-communist member of the EU. The Polish diplomat also said the country would like to change the way the EU calculates the budget deficit so it could meet a fiscal criterion to adopt the euro more easily, a request likely to face stiff opposition.

"The EU's 2020 strategy ... should say that we should finish enlargement of the euro area," said the senior diplomat, who asked not to be named.

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