Romania May Postpone Adopting The Euro Beyond 2014 Due To Intl Financial Crisis

Romania may postpone adopting the Euro beyond 2014, if the current financial crisis initiated in the United States will impact the Romanian economy too heavily, the Romanian Central Bank Governor Mugur Isarescu thinks.

“It is too early to foresee all the details of the financial crisis and its impact on Romania till 2014,” Isarescu said. “I am no fortune teller and cannot predict the final outcome; all I say is that there is a possibility for postponing the date,” added he, at the opening of the conference on the “Enhancement of Knowledge on Higher Education and Its Dissemination: Imperative for Policy and Practice,” in Cluj-Napoca.

Isarescu added that the crisis will not take a direct hit on Romania not for the country would have hold a primitive financial system, but for its banks steering away from “toxic” credit products because of the stricter norms set up by the Romanian Central Bank.

“At the same time, Romanian banks did not need to rely on more sophisticated products, since the market is in full expansion and classic investment and financial products offered more than enough room for making a profit. However, there could be an indirect hit given by the panic effect,” said Isarescu.

“I cannot gouge how much of the crisis is due to the lack of knowledge of leaders of financial institutions themselves or to the overpowering greed which made all involved believe that profit can be generated out of nothing, and at no risk to themselves,” commented Isarescu.

Misrepresentations turned into profit and dividends, but the snowball went downhill when the slogan “you have a house, then you have credit” was taken on seriously and more Americans got credit based on their overvalued real-estate properties and with no regard to their actual capacity to repay the credit, Isarescu went on the explain.

“This outcome could have been avoided had the US regulations been stricter, in the sense of coming closer to the standards laid out in Basel,” Isarescu said.

One other topic Isarescu addressed was the somewhat taboo of having to strict work regulations, that do not allow a more flexible workforce market. “Wherever you ,look now, all employers complain about the lack of workforce. This is lack of flexibility in the workforce market hinders the economic development, and this is why a rapid structural reform was needed in this field,” said Isarescu.

“I believe it is high time to show that barriers raised for laying off turn into barriers for hiring in. If we hinder the employer to let go of the workforce he no longer needs, then we also hinder him from hiring people back when the economic context allows his business to develop. Rules of conduct born out of the desire to protect the employees turns against their interests, since it limits the ability of businesses to raise productivity, production and salaries,” said Isarescu.