PARIS, Nov 30 (Reuters) - The financial crisis has prompted British officials to acknowledge the merits of the euro and those who mattered were thinking about adopting the currency, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said.

Speaking on France’s RTL radio, Barroso said British leaders had told him in conversation that they would be better off now if they had adopted the euro <EUR=> as their currency.

“The crisis has emphasised the importance of the euro … that undoubtedly (has) also (been the case) in the United Kingdom,” he said on Sunday.

“I don’t mean to say that it will be tomorrow and I know that the majority in Britain remain opposed to this idea, but it is evolving and the people who count in the United Kingdom are in the process of thinking about it,” he said.

Pragmatism was one of Britain’s qualities and the day people there concluded that adopting the euro would make them economically better off, they would take such a step, he said.

Barroso noted that Denmark was now explaining the cost of not using the euro to its public.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in November that he would seek to secure broad support for holding a referendum on joining the euro. Some analysts believe a vote could be held as early as March or April next year. Denmark rejected the euro in a 2000 vote. (Reporting by Tamora Vidaillet; Editing by Jan Paschal)

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