TALLINN — Former Estonian ambassador to Germany and politician Tiit Matsulevitš reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel expects Estonia to meet the Maastricht criteria and qualify for eurozone entry by 2011.

“Angela Merkel’s party expects that Estonia will meet the Maastricht criteria and it can be a member of the eurozone,” he said in daily Eesti Ekspress.

Swedbank was quick to second the German leader saying that the country had between a “70 to 80 percent chance” of getting the euro by 2011.

“We are thinking that there is a greater probability that the country will join than not joining,” Swedbank Estonia’s chief economist Maris Lauri told Baltic Reports.  “The most difficult thing is to keep spending under control especially at the end of the year when there is a big potential to spend money.”

Lauri said that any negative global symptoms of the economic crisis could tip the balance and see Estonia fail.

“We have to have hope in the last two months of this year for the global economy, but there is some risk,” she said.

The bank expects the country to stay within the 3 percent budget deficit allowed under the Maastricht criteria as well as inflation figures, which will be released in spring next year.

Estonia is just months away from evaluation at the end of 2009, when the European Commission will tally up the numbers and decided whether the country could be the first in the Baltics to adopt the currency.

The evaluation is expected to be handed down in May 2010.

The euro could be a boon for Estonia, which is being at arm’s length by international investors because of fears of a currency devaluation, by giving its rocky economy stability.