The 1992
Maastricht Treaty obliged EU member states to join the eurozone once they meet the convergence criteria. The only member state not covered by these provisions is Denmark (and formerly the United Kingdom before it
withdrew from the EU), who when the euro was agreed to negotiated a treaty
opt-out from the requirement to join. All member states who joined the EU after 1992 have committed - as part of the terms of their
Treaty of Accession to join the EU - to adopt the euro as soon as they meet the criteria.
Czech Republic Following their accession to the EU in May 2004, the Czech Republic aimed to replace the
koruna with the euro in 2010, however this was postponed indefinitely. The
European sovereign-debt crisis further decreased the Czech Republic's interest in joining the eurozone. President
Miloš Zeman also supported a referendum, but did still advocate adoption of the euro. The popular opposition as well as support for the euro adoption remains constant: around 70% of people oppose the adoption, meanwhile 20% support it (the figures have not changed since 2010). Adoption was supported under Prime Minister
Bohuslav Sobotka, although he accepted a recommendation from the
Czech National Bank to refrain from setting a specific target date. The government agreed that if it was re-elected in 2017 then it would agree a roadmap for adoption by 2020, however the election was lost to
Andrej Babiš who had been against euro adoption in the near-term. Babiš's successor
Petr Fiala and his
cabinet, formed after the
2021 legislative election, began its term by maintaining the predecessor cabinets' intention not to adopt the euro, calling the adoption "disadvantageous" for the Czechs. However, the position not to set a target date for euro adoption and not to apply for ERM-II membership was only supported by one of the five ruling cabinet parties (
ODS), while all the other four parties supported to start a euro adoption process. Czech President
Petr Pavel announced in his New Year’s speech for 2024, that he supported the Czech Republic to take imminent concrete steps towards adopting the euro. In February 2024, the Czech government appointed a commissioner for euro adoption, economist Petr Zahradnik, to oversee efforts to adopt the euro and communicate the beneficiary prospects to the Czech public. Prime Minister
Petr Fiala (ODS) however immediately called a five-party coalition summit in response, as his party still disagreed with the idea to start preparing for ERM-II membership now, and hoped the government instead could negotiate and reach a new joint position on this issue - more closely aligned with the viewpoint of ODS. The Czech minister for European affairs,
Martin Dvořák, at the other side proposed a timeline of joining ERM-II in 2024/2025 and adopting the euro on 1 January 2030. The coalition summit resulted in a new common government policy on the issue, first cancelling the post of the just appointed euro adoption commissioner, and then instead ordering an expert panel advice by October 2024 on the merits of joining ERM-II. The government will now await the expert panel report, before taking any further decisions about ERM-II membership or euro adoption. An April 2025
Eurobarometer poll, showed that 46% of Czechs favour adoption of the euro in the Czech Republic, while 54% were against. Polls conducted by Czech public media and
Czech Academy of Sciences usually show even stronger opposition to the euro adoption, around 72% in 2023 and 2024.
Denmark Denmark has
pegged its
krone to the euro at €1 = DKK 7.46038 ± 2.25% through the
ERM II since it replaced the original ERM on 1 January 1999. During negotiations of the
Maastricht Treaty of 1992, Denmark secured a
protocol which gave it the right to decide if and when they would join the euro. Denmark subsequently notified the Council of the European Communities of their decision to
opt out of the euro. This was done in response to the Maastricht Treaty having been rejected by the Danish people in a
referendum earlier that year. As a result of the changes, the treaty was ratified in a subsequent
referendum held in 1993. On 28 September 2000, a
euro referendum was held in Denmark resulting in a 53.2% vote against the government's proposal to join the euro. Although the referendum rejected adopting the euro, the country as an ERM-II member still follows the policies set forth in the
EMU; meaning that Denmark policy wise aspires to meet all economic
convergence criteria needed to adopt the euro, while deliberately failing only to meet the fifth legislation criteria - in full accordance with its
treaty opt-out from eurozone membership. Since 2007, the Danish government has discussed holding
another referendum on euro adoption. Prime Minister
Lars Løkke Rasmussen contemplated but never held a second euro referendum, both in 2009 and 2011. However the political and financial uncertainty due to the
European debt crisis led this to be postponed.
Opinion polls, which had generally favoured euro adoption from 2002 to 2010, showed a rapid decline in support during the height of the
European debt crisis, reaching a low in May 2012 with 26% in favour towards 67% against while 7% were in doubt. In March 2018, 29% of respondents from Denmark in a
Eurobarometer opinion poll stated that they were in favour of the EMU and the euro, whereas 65% were against it, and 6% undecided. The exact same poll conducted in May 2024, signaled a gradual rise for supporting the euro from the previous level recorded in 2012 and 2018; with 34% now in favour, 58% against and 8% undecided. A second referendum to abolish the opt-out and adopt the euro is not on the 2023-2026 agenda of the current Danish government.
Hungary With their accession to the EU in 2004, Hungary began planning to adopt the euro in place of the
forint. However, the country's
high deficit delayed this. After the 2006 election, Prime Minister
Ferenc Gyurcsány introduced austerity measures, reducing the deficit to less than 5% in 2007 from 9.2%. In February 2011, newly elected Prime Minister
Viktor Orbán, of the
right-wing populist and
Eurosceptic Fidesz party, made clear that he did not expect the euro to be adopted in Hungary before 1 January 2020. Orbán said the country was not yet ready to adopt the currency and they will not discuss the possibility until the public debt reaches a 50% threshold. The public
debt-to-GDP ratio was 81.0% when Orban's 50% target was set in 2011, and it was forecast to decline to 73.5% in 2016. In April 2013, Viktor Orbán further added that Hungarian
purchasing power parity weighted GDP per capita must also reach 90% of the eurozone average. Shortly after Viktor Orbán had been
re-elected as Prime Minister for another four-year term in April 2014, the Hungarian Central Bank announced they plan to distribute a new series of Forint bank notes in 2018. In June 2015, Orbán himself declared that his government would no longer entertain the idea of replacing the forint with the euro in 2020, as was previously suggested, and instead expected the forint to remain "stable and strong for the next several decades". In July 2016,
National Economy Minister Mihály Varga suggested that the country could adopt the euro by the "end of the decade", but only if economic trends continue to improve and the common currency becomes more stable. While Varga backed away from that, saying convergence was still needed,
Sándor Csányi (the head of the country's largest bank and ranked the second most influential man in Hungary) argued that further integration of the eurozone would provide a likely catalyst as Hungary would not want to be left out of closer integration. Attila Chikan, a professor of economics at
Corvinus University, and a former economy minister to Orban, added that "Orban is at once very pragmatic and impulsive, he can make decisions very fast and sometimes on unexpected grounds." An April 2025
Eurobarometer poll, showed that 75% of Hungarians favour adoption of the euro in Hungary. Further opposition arose due to the on-going
sovereign-debt crisis, with the
Polish National Bank recommending Poland wait until the Eurozone had overcome the crisis. The leader of the Law and Justice Party,
Jarosław Kaczyński, stated in 2013 that "I do not foresee any moment when the adoption of the euro would be advantageous for us" and called for a referendum on euro adoption. Donald Tusk responded saying he was open to a referendum, as part of a package in Parliament to approve the constitutional amendment. However the
2015 Polish elections were won by Law and Justice who not only opposed any further moves towards membership, but whose relations with the EU degenerated due to
a potential violation of EU values by Poland. A group of Polish economists have suggested that euro adoption could be a way of smoothing over relations from the dispute. Polls have generally showed that Poles are opposed to adopting the euro straight away, with a eurobarometer poll in April 2015 showing that 44% of Polish people are in favour of introducing the euro (a decrease of 1% from 2014), whereas 53% are opposed (no change from 2014). However, polls conducted by
TNS Polska throughout 2012–2015 have consistently shown support for eventually adopting the euro, though that support depends on the target date. According to the latest
TNS Polska poll from June 2015, the share who supported adoption was 46% against 41%. When asked about the appropriate timing, the supporters were divided into three groups of equal size, with 15% advocating for adoption within the next 5 years, another 14% preferring it should happen between 6–10 years from now, and finally 17% arguing it should happen more than 10 years from now. In April 2012 the Romanian convergence report submitted under the
Stability and Growth Pact listed 1 January 2015 to be the target date for euro adoption. In April 2013 Prime Minister
Victor Ponta has stated that "eurozone entry remains a fundamental objective for Romania but we can't enter poorly prepared", and that 2020 was a more realistic target. The Romanian Central Bank governor,
Mugur Isărescu, admitted the target was ambitious, but obtainable if the political parties passed a legal roadmap for the required reforms to be implemented, and clarified this roadmap should lead to Romania entering ERM II only on 1 January 2017 so the euro could be adopted after two years of ERM II membership on 1 January 2019. As of April 2015, the Romanian government concluded it was still on track to attain its target for euro adoption in 2019, both in regards of ensuring full compliance with all nominal convergence criteria and in regards of ensuring a prior satisfying degree of "real convergence". The Romanian target for "real convergence" ahead of euro adoption, is for its GDP per capita (in purchasing power standards) to be above 60% of the same average figure for the entire European Union, and according to the latest outlook, this relative figure was now forecast to reach 65% in 2018 and 71% in 2020, after having risen at the same pace from 29% in 2002 to 54% in 2014. However, in September 2015 Romania's central bank governor
Mugur Isarescu said that the 2019 target was no longer realistic. The Romanian foreign minister,
Teodor Meleșcanu, declared in August 2017 that he thought Romania would be ready to "adopt the euro in five years, in 2022". In March 2018, however, members of the ruling
Social Democratic Party (PSD) voted at an extraordinary congress to initially back a 2024 target year to adopt the euro as Romania's currency. But in February 2021, the country was scheduled only to enter ERM II in 2024, with the target year for euro adoption delayed to 2027 or 2028. In December 2021, the euro adoption target was further delayed to 2029. In March 2023, the government maintained the target for euro adoption to be 2029, while the target to enter the antechamber of the eurozone (ERM-II) was set to 2026. The , represented by its president
Daniel Dăianu, handed over a fiscal advice and analysis to the Romanian government in August 2023, concluding that the ongoing troubles to limit the excessive budget deficit had delayed the earliest year of ERM-II membership to 2026/2027 and euro adoption to 2029/2030. The current national plan for adoption of the euro established a self-imposed criterion for Romania to reduce its
structural budget deficit to 1% of GDP before entering ERM II. After reaching a historic high at 7.4% of GDP in 2020, the structural budget deficit was forecast to continue exceeding this ERM II criterion at a projected 5.7% of GDP in 2023 and 4.8% of GDP in 2024. which he expected would extend the adjustment period for Romania and move the required exit of its ongoing
Excessive Deficit Procedure (EDP) from 2024 to 2027, the implementation of some significant annual budget cuts amounting to 0.5% of
GDP each year would still be required. Romania was at first granted 4 years to correct its excessive deficit when the procedure was opened in 2020, but the Finance Minister assessed that Romania would likely now need a full maximum seven years to adjust, and admitted that "as long as we don’t enter on a clear fiscal consolidation path, euro-entry remains just a longer-term objective."
Moody's projected a budget deficit of 5.7% of GDP in 2024, and assessed that "the European Commission will likely conclude this spring that Romania has failed to meet its fiscal targets under the Excessive Deficit Procedure, but Moody's expects that the government will not announce any additional consolidation efforts until after the
parliamentary elections in the second half of 2024." In May 2024, the budget deficit was recorded to 6.6% of GDP in 2023, and projected by the Commission to reach 6.9% of GDP in 2024. Despite having declared itself to be bound by the strictest fiscal provisions of the
European Fiscal Compact, Romania, as a non-eurozone member state, will not be subject to the standard fine of 0.2% of GDP for having failed to meet its fiscal targets under the EDP (a deficit at maximum 4.4% of GDP in 2023 and 2.9% of GDP in 2024). However, the European Commission has previously warned Romania that failure to meet the fiscal targets of its EDP could result in the partial cancellation of ongoing payments (grants and loans) from its
National Recovery and Resilience Plan for 2021-2026, of which 9 out of 28.5 billion euro had been paid as of March 2024. and has chosen to not join pending public approval by a referendum, thereby intentionally avoiding the fulfillment of the adoption requirements. On 14 September 2003, 56% of Swedes voted against adopting the euro in a
referendum. Most of Sweden's major parties believe that it would be in the national interest to join, but they have all pledged to abide by the result of the referendum. Former Prime Minister
Fredrik Reinfeldt stated in December 2007 that there would be no new referendum until there was stable support for "yes" in the polls, and this position remained unchanged in the political platform of his party
Moderaterna in 2013. From 2004-2009, polls generally showed stable support for the "no" alternative, except for a few polls in 2009 which showed a narrow lead for "yes". Strong support for "no" existed from 2010-2014, with 73% opposing and only 23% supporting euro introduction in a November 2014 poll. According to
Eurobarometer polls, the numbers of Swedes favouring adoption of the euro in Sweden grew to 32% in April 2015, and 54% in April 2023. As a result of an increase in support in recent opinion polls and the twentieth anniversary of the first euro referendum in Sweden, the question about organizing a second euro referendum received renewed attention in September 2023; although only one of the Swedish parliamentary parties (
Liberalerna) opted to push for introducing the euro as swiftly as possible, while the
Centerpartiet opted to open up an investigation into the pros and cons. ==Outside the EU==