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When will Poland take on the EURO? [47]
How was it that the UK and Norway conveniently managed to opt out of the euro zone?
Norway isn't in the EU.
Among pre-Euro countries that have stayed out - the UK negotiated an opt-out, Sweden has been tolerated because their agreement to join the EU was before the Maastricht Treaty and Denmark has an opt-out as well, although Denmark has their currency pegged to the Euro anyway. However, with the 2004, 2007 and 2013 countries, there is no such thing - there's a legal obligation to join. If Poland didn't want to join the Euro, the time to negotiate that was in 2002-3.
Except the EU won't last that long. People are getting fed up with overpaid eurocrats trying to show they're doing something by thinking up an "environmentally friendly" light bulb (that spews poison gas when broken), a "new and improved" mail box, a "better" mouse-trap, etc. and then forcing them down everyone's throat.
Most of us prefer this stuff to the situation before the EU, when we were too busy killing each other over minor differences.
Anyway, the EU is irrevocable now. Some countries might drop out on the periphery, but the core European economies are just far too closely linked to be broken easily now.
