Compliance with Maastricht Criteria

The European Union (EU) Member States which have not joined the euro-area, yet, have to comply with several conditions to adopt the single currency or the so-called Maastricht criteria. Criteria are the following:

1. Inflation rate should be no more than 1.5 percentage points above the rate for the three EU countries with the lowest inflation over the previous year;
2. Budget deficit must generally be below 3% of gross domestic product (GDP);
3. National debt should not exceed 60% of GDP;
4. Long terms rate should not be more than two percentage points above the rate in the three EU countries with the lowest inflation over the previous year;
5. National currency's exchange rate should have stayed within +/-15% margins set within the Exchange Rate MechanismIIfluctuation for two years before joining the euro area.

The main objective of the Maastricht criteria is to ensure that only those EU Member States join the euro area whose economic conditions ensure price stability and effective functioning of the euro area.

The convergence criteria have to be met based on the current data, but at the same time compliance with the convergence criteria has a significant role not only at a particular moment but also in a longer period of time. Therefore, when evaluating a Member State, a special attention is paid to sustainability of convergence.

Compliance with Maastricht criteria - Latvia's data

* Provisory data
Information source: State Treasury, Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia, Eurostat.

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