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BOE's Buiter confident Britain will join EMU

NOTTINGHAM: A member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee said on Tuesday he confidently expected Britain would switch from the pound to the European Union's single currency, the euro.

"I anticipate we will hear a date and a rate," Willem Buiter told the Royal Economic Society's annual conference. But he said he did not expected any near-term announcement.

"While the act of joining EMU continues to be confidently expected...it will lead to euro-isation of sterling," he said, referring to the likelihood that an increasing amount of British financial activity would be carried out in euros.

Buiter briefly referred to interest rates in Europe, saying "there is no inflation threat in Europe. They can get on with it (cutting rates)."

One of the nine members of the Bank of England's repo rate-setting Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), Buiter was the only member to vote for a BOE rate cut at its March meeting.

He has been the MPC's most proactive member since it stopped delivering unanimous decisions in January, 1998. From that monthly meeting until August, with the exception of July, he called for interest rate rises.

But in September last year, he changed tack and voted for a rate cut, an act he has repeated at meetings since. In recent months, Buiter has called for rate cuts larger than those voted for by the MPC as a whole.

Britain's Labour goverment says its policy on the euro is to prepare for it but not to make any early decision. The government has ruled out joining the euro in the current parliament, which can run until 2002, and has pledged a referendum on the issue before any decision is made. -Reuters