WARSAW, Feb 3: The new head of Poland’s central bank said in an interview previewed on Saturday that he expected an adoption of the euro in 2012 or 2013.

Slawomir Skrzypek’s comments in his first Polish media interview since his appointment in January were carried on the website of the weekly Wprost magazine, which will publish the full interview on Monday.

Skrzypek told the weekly that Poland would adopt euro at a time that would be beneficial for the country. He said the finance ministry expected that the country would fulfil convergence criteria for euro-zone entry in 2009.

“If to that we add the time needed to carry out the entire procedure, that would mean us adopting the euro in 2012 or 2013.

That decision belongs to the state authorities,” he was quoted as saying.

Skrzypek said last month that more in-depth studies were needed to decide what was the best euro strategy.

He has said there is no point setting a target date for the adoption of the single currency and has dismissed as not thorough enough a bank study from 2004, which showed Poland stood to gain from entry.

“There are states that benefited by adopting the euro such as Ireland and Spain. But there are also states dissatisfied with it such as Italy, Greece and Portugal, and those such as Germany and France, where evaluation of the euro is ambivalent,” he told Wprost.

“Designating a euro adoption date by Poland can take place after an analysis of the costs and benefits and after fulfilling the conditions for adopting the common currency.—Reuters