A political shift and rising public deficits are likely to result in the European Union’s four new leading member States rolling back again their timetables for signing up to what is a symbol of European integration – the euro.

Indeed, analysts have again been forced to push back the likely euro membership dates for the leading EU newcomers – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia – from the targets they had pencilled as recently as three months ago.

In particular, this follows a series of swings to less euro- friendly governments among the EU’s key new members such as Poland, which appears to have further undercut the political will for pressing on with the tough budgetary medicine most nations need for joining the 12-member eurozone.

As a result, euro membership could drop down in the list of political priorities for many of the leading Central European States which joined the EU in May 2004.

“There are severe question marks hanging over these countries concerning joining the euro,” said Olivier Desbarres, emerging markets analyst with Credit Swiss First Boston.

All EU States, with the exception of Britain and Denmark, are legally bound to join the euro.

However, there also appears to be little political appetite in Brussels at the moment for eurozone enlargement with the European Commission taking a very tough line on adopting the common currency, insisting that there will be no fudging of the strict budgetary targets.

As things stand, the small former Yugoslavian Republic of Slovenia will become the first of new EU states to sign up for the euro in January next year. But when it comes to the bigger more complicated economies such as Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland, Desbarres said that “new governments and fiscal slippage have meant that eurozone membership is under a cloud.

“No country is likely to join before 2010,” although Slovakia had a slim chance of signing up before then, he said.

Some analysts are now even talking about the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary not adopting the euro until 2015.

Despite Slovakian Finance Minister Jan Pociatek insisting that his government was committed to adopting the euro in 2009, analysts believe that Bratislava’s new left-wing populist government’s spending promises could set back any efforts to meet the fiscal rules for common currency membership.

Once a frontrunner for euro membership, Slovakia now faces rising consumer prices, which mean Bratislava will have to work particularly hard in the next two years to knock inflation down to the current 2.6 per cent inflation benchmark for new euro member States.

In the meantime, analysts are waiting for draft budget details before making a final judgement on the how economic policy is likely to shape up under the new coalition government.

Likewise, the Czech Republic’s budget setting out increased public spending combined with on-going political uncertainties, including the threat of early elections, have also led to expectations that Prague will be forced to delay adopting the euro.

The Czech Republic has a 2010 target for joining the eurozone, but the nation’s new government has already flagged that the budget it has inherited may make the date impossible to meet. Analysts now see 2012 as a more likely date.

After all, a 2010 target means that the government would have to meet the Maastricht criteria next year so as to qualify.

What is more, smaller EU newcomers such as Estonia, Cyprus and Malta are likely to be part of the eurozone before the EU new members’ big four. In the case of Hungary, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany’s recently elected government appears to have also stepped back from a previous target date of 2010.

As it happens, a ballooning budget deficit, which could hit a staggering 8.0 per cent plus this year, means that analysts believe that between 2012 and 2014 might be a more convincing date. The Maastricht Treaty sets 3.0 per cent of GDP as the deficit target for nations wanting to join the euro.

Poland could be even later with the new populist leadership at the helm of Central Europe’s biggest economy showing a lack of enthusiasm for the euro project and focused more on growth to help spur the country’s economic transformation, rather than trying to hammer back the deficit to meet the euro convergence criteria.

So far, Warsaw has not set a date for euro membership.

Instead, the talk is about Poland first holding a referendum on joining the common currency possibly by the end of the decade.

However, even if the Polish electorate agreed to replacing the zloty with the euro, it might take another four years for the country to complete all the necessary steps for eurozone membership.

“Given the political scene it looks like 2014 at the earliest,” said Michael Dybula, BNP Paribas in Warsaw on Poland’s possible euro membership timetable.

“There is no will at all (in Warsaw to knock the nation’s public finances into shape),” said Dybula.