User:Danish Expert/sandbox

The chapter below is a direct copy of my previously uploaded "new version" (as of 16:19, 14 March 2013‎) with a later reformulation of the 2nd+3rd+4th "introduction paragraph" into more neutral language on 16 March 2013. The idea is, that this material should either be copied into the Latvian euro coins article as a new "Convergence Status" chapter or into a subarticle (i.e. entitled Latvia and the euro). The appropriateness of displaying monthly data has been questioned at the article's talkpage. This sandbox has been created in order to still have visible content for the purposes of keeping the content visible while debating, and getting the opportunity to adjust the introduction lines ahead of the table, so that it satisfy the minds of the engaged wikipedians in the debate. All editors in the debate are of course allowed to visit this sandbox and upload their own suggestion for how the chapter should be.

Convergence Status
The Maastricht Treaty originally required that all members of the European Union join the euro once certain economic criteria are met. In April 2012, when Latvia last time was officially evaluated by ECB, it met 3 out of the 5 criteria. Latvia has announced that they will request that another evaluation be conducted in March 2013. Latvian Prime Minister Valdis Dombrovskis stated in January 2013 that Latvia "are currently fulfilling the Maastricht [euro adoption] criteria with a considerable reserve, therefore I don't see any basis on which this convergence report would be negative."

The table below display an indication for Latvia's convergence status throughout the past year, based on ECB's official assesment method, where calculation of the monthly reference values for HICP inflation and interest rates (since the first values published by the ECB report for April 2012), all have been verified by the Polish Ministry of Finance. According to the table, the first assesment month where Latvia managed to indicate a full compliance with all criteria values was March 2013. Back in December 2012, the Latvian Central Bank claimed the country had fully complied with all convergence criteria since September 2012 (equal to the assement month in October 2012). As the claim by the Latvian Central Bank was based on a different data approach for the fiscal criteria, where they compared "forecasted deficit and debt for the ongoing year (2012)", instead of adopting the ECB methods data approach where fiscal compliance is only judged upon "final deficit and debt data published by Eurostat for the last full calendar year (meaning 2011)", the conclusion from the central bank should however only be considered as being a forecast for what to expect, rather than an indication of how the compliance situation was for the specific month in concern when evaluated strictly according to the data approach as outlined by the published official ECB method.


 * Note: According to the official ECB method a compliance towards the fiscal criteria shall always be measured according to whether or not an open ongoing EDP exists for the country (as defined by the EU treaty's art.140 and 126(6) referral to the Protocol on the Excessive Deficit Procedure), meaning that a country need to comply with the fiscal criteria by its official fiscal data (published by the European Commission's statistical agency Eurostat) for the last full calendar year. As Latvia did not comply with the deficit criteria by its published 2011 fiscal data, their EDP was not abrogated throughout 2012, and thus the country did not comply with the euro adoption deficit criteria throughout 2012. It shall be noted that the European Commission's latest economic forecast, indicate that Latvia's EDP will be abrogated shortly after Eurostat publish the country's official deficit and debt data for fiscal year 2012, which according to the release calendar will happen on 22 April 2013.

According to the previously published "ECB method" being applied by the data table below (with the monthly reference values verified by the Polish Ministry of Finance), Latvia has indicated a full compliance with all Maastricht criteria since the data month February 2013, understood as being since the "assessment month" March 2013. The official confirmation about Latvia's potential compliance with all five criteria, will however only be known when published by the ordered ECB convergence report, which currently await Eurostat's publication of Latvia's finally recorded 2012 fiscal data on 22 April 2013.


 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| May 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.1% (as of 30 Apr 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 30 Apr 2012)
 * max. 5.77% (as of 30 Apr 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|4.0%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|5.65%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| June 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.1% (as of 31 May 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 May 2012)
 * max. 3.98% (as of 31 May 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|3.7%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|5.55%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| July 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.0% (as of 30 Jun 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 30 Jun 2012)
 * max. 3.86% (as of 30 Jun 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|3.5%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|5.48%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| August 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.0% (as of 31 Jul 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 Jul 2012)
 * max. 3.74% (as of 31 Jul 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|3.3%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|5.40%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| September 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.0% (as of 31 Aug 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 Aug 2012)
 * max. 3.68% (as of 31 Aug 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|3.1%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|5.31%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| October 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 3.0% (as of 30 Sep 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 30 Sep 2012)
 * max. 3.66% (as of 30 Sep 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2.9%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.6%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|5.17%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| November 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 2.9% (as of 31 Oct 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 Oct 2012)
 * max. 3.63% (as of 31 Oct 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2.7%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.4%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.2%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|4.99%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| December 2012
 * Reference values
 * max. 2.8% (as of 30 Nov 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Fiscal year 2011)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Fiscal year 2011)
 * min. 2 years (as of 30 Nov 2012)
 * max. 3.61% (as of 30 Nov 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2.5%
 * bgcolor=yellow|3.4%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|42.2%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|4.79%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| January 2013
 * Reference values
 * max. 2.8% (as of 31 Dec 2012)
 * max. 3.0% (Forecast of fiscal year 2012)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Forecast of fiscal year 2012)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 Dec 2012)
 * max. 3.59% (as of 31 Dec 2012)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2.3%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|1.7%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|41.9%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|4.57%
 * - bgcolor="#ececec" align="center"
 * rowspan="2"| February 2013
 * Reference values
 * max. 2.7% (as of 31 Jan 2013)
 * max. 3.0% (Forecast of fiscal year 2012)
 * max. 60%, or declining  (Forecast of fiscal year 2012)
 * min. 2 years (as of 31 Jan 2013)
 * max. 3.60% (as of 31 Jan 2013)
 * - align="center"
 * style="text-align:left"|Latvia
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2.0%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|1.5%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|41.9%
 * bgcolor=lightgreen|2 May 2005
 * bgcolor=#ff7f7f|4.35%