EBRD urges EU to relax euro accession rules-paper

BERLIN, March 8 (Reuters) - The European Commission should cut the waiting time for applicants to join the euro area, Thomas Mirow, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"The EU Commission should send out clear signals of solidarity to eastern European countries," Mirow, a former German deputy finance minister, told German business daily Handelsblatt in an advance excerpt from its Monday edition.

"For example, I'd like to see the waiting room time for admission into the euro zone reduced to one year from two provided (EU budgetary rules) are respected," he added.

Before joining the euro, a country must keep its currency inside the ERM-2 grid for at least two years, where it trades within a plus/minus 15 percent range around a central parity.

Eastern Europe has been hit hard by the financial crisis and Poland and Hungary are among the countries who have urged the rules governing euro accession to be relaxed.

Owned by 61 countries and two inter-governmental institutions, the EBRD was set up in 1991 to help transform former Communist states in Europe into market economies.

(Writing by Dave Graham; Editing by Bernard Orr)