Bonn, Aug 17: German chancellor Helmut Kohl vowed in an interview released on Sunday that Europe's planned single currency would be stable.He also said that, on top of meeting the entry targets for European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), lasting stability was a key factor for countries seeking to join.

``We don't want a weak euro,'' Kohl told ZDF TV according to the published text of the interview.

``Whoever believes that Helmut Kohl will give up the policy (of stability) out of enthusiasm for Europe and day-to-day factors... is wrong. That is a price I will not pay.''

Kohl's foreign minister Klaus Kinkel rounded on a leading German eurosceptic who has called for a two-year delay to EMU if countries fail to meet the Maastricht treaty entry criteria.

Bavarian state premier Edmund Stoiber has in several recent newspaper interviews said the euro launch should be put back if countries overshoot the Maastricht budget deficit goal of three percent of gross domestic product.

Kinkel said EMU would start on time in 1999, and any talk of a delay would harm the German economy. ``No one should be in any doubt: the euro must and will come on time on January 1, 1999, and the agreed stability criteria will be strictly observed,'' Kinkel said in a statement.

``Talking all the time about a delay to the euro... creates uncertainty and turbulence. We can't afford either."

Kohl, speaking at his lakeside holiday home in Austria, did not refer directly to the Maastricht criteria or EMU timetable.

Instead, he said that the sustainability of state finances -- in particular total government borrowing -- was important.

``I am not just thinking of the criteria this or next year...but of the concept of sustainability,'' Kohl said in the ZDF interview, which was recorded on Thursday.

``That is why we need an active and powerful European centralbank."Kohl, 67, has bowed to pressure from Stoiber and pledged to meet the strict 3.0 per cent interpretation of the budget deficit to allay fears of those who believe a fudged currency Union would result in a soft euro.

Although that concession temporarily silenced Stoiber -a senior figure in finance minister Theo Waigel's Christian Social Union party - he has lately started banging the drum again for an EMU delay.

``If Germany and France miss the criteria, then a currency Union at the planned time is not possible,'' Stoiber told Saturday's Bild daily in an interview.

He said a possible two-year delay would still leave time to issue euro notes and coins as planned in 2002. ``The years 1998 and 1999 would then be used as additional trial years to meet the criteria credibly,'' he said. But Kinkel said Germany could not afford a chronic debate over postponing EMU. The signals coming from Germany must be clear to our European partners,'' he said. ``We Germans cannot come under the suspicion that we want to bale out.''

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.