Recital (11)

In accordance with Article 4 of Protocol No 13, the criterion on the convergence of interest rates referred to in the fourth indent of Article 140(1) TFEU means that, observed over a period of one year before the examination, a Member State has had an average nominal long-term interest rate that does not exceed by more than two percentage points that of, at most, the three best-performing Member States in terms of price stability. The criterion used to assess the convergence of interest rates was comparable interest rates on ten-year benchmark government bonds. To assess the fulfilment of the interest-rate criterion, a reference value calculated as the simple arithmetic average of the nominal long-term interest rates of the three best-performing Member States in terms of price stability, plus two percentage points, was considered in the reports of the Commission and the ECB. The reference value is based on the long-term interest rates in Ireland (2,8 %), Finland (2,9 %) and Italy (3,7 %), and in the 12-month period ending in April 2025 it was 5,1 %.