The Government is to ask for an assessment on Malta’s readiness to join the euro currency in early March, announced Parliamentary Secretary Tonio Fenech in a third plenary session on the euro changeover.

Malta is expected to changeover to the currency on the 1st January 2008.

The Parliamentary Secretary added that the European Commission clearly stated that Malta is performing well where it comes to technical preparations and carrying out an effective and ambitious information campaign through the efforts of the National Euro Changeover Committee (NECC).

Tonio Fenech also stated that a few months ago, although deficit and debt criterion were already on track, the inflation rate was the main challenge.  “However, trends have followed earlier predictions and we are today more able to assess the likelihood of achieving and sustaining this target.   We have now met this target a couple of months ago and expect to remain under the inflation rate criterion in the foreseeable future,” he continued.

Besides being well on track to meet the convergence criteria, Malta is also mastering its technical preparations and communications strategy for accession accordingly, noted the Parliamentary Secretary. The work of the NECC has also been under the spotlight with a British team approaching it to share knowledge on the subject. The European Commission has also asked the NECC administrative team to help out the Czech Republic and Hungary in drafting a similar communications strategy. Additionally, Malta’s Fair-pricing Agreements in Retailing (FAIR) initiative sparked the interest of Cyprus, which asked the NECC to help out in carrying out such an important exercise.

Parliamentary Secretary also urged that Malta should be more ambitious in consolidating its public finances, “especially now that the euro area is enjoying a recovery, not only in order to avoid running into future difficulties, but also to achieve balanced budgets before the budgetary impact of ageing is fully felt,” he said.