MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Last week, a petition calling for a national referendum in Finland on withdrawing from the eurozone has exceeded the threshold of 50,000 signatures, making it eligible to be considered by the parliament.
"The Finnish government… will stick to euro, as well as a majority of economists are in favor to stay within the single currency market. We are in the middle of Europe and are very dependent of the EU economic and fiscal policies. I think we will stay within the euro currency area," Hannu Kaseva from the Research Institute of the Finnish Economy (ETLA) told Sputnik
ETLA’s Paavo Suni said that Helsinki was following Berlin’s footsteps in the economic policy, and would not change this trend in the foreseeable future.
"As a result, we will stay within a single currency market as long as Germany. Finland will be among those who will leave euro last. This dependency can be explained by the fact that Finland is a small country. We cannot afford an independent fiscal policy and lacking capabilities to protect our national exchange rate," Suni explained.
Markku Kotilainen, the Research Director at ETLA, said that Finland has experienced several economic shocks, such as the collapse of its hi-tech champion Nokia and declining demand for paper in Europe, the main market of the country's paper industry.
"In case Finland had an independent floating currency it would have [depreciated] and improved the cost competitiveness of the Finnish export sector. So in the short run a floating currency would have helped, but the euro as such was not the reason for difficulties," Kotilainen said.
According to the research director, leaving the eurozone would be costly and would create a crisis.
"Some argue that after all the recent experiences it would have been better outside the eurozone, but [very] few think [that] leaving the euro now would be a solution… If it will leave it some day it will happen in a context of a general crisis in the euroarea," Kotilainen added.
Finland joined the euro area in 1999, and formally adopted the common currency in 2002.
