EMU Strategies: Lessons from Past Experience in View of EU Enlargement

This paper, after reviewing briefly the early steps of European monetary integration and key elements of the EMU project as reflected in the Treaty of Maastricht, analyses the monetary integration strategy and convergence experience of member states, in particular that of Greece, in the 1990s which led to the adoption of the euro. From this analysis, a number of lessons are drawn which may be useful, in the light of enlargement, to future candidates for euro area membership in designing their economic and monetary convergence strategies. The paper concludes that the existing Community institutions, rules and mechanisms provide a helpful framework to guide the convergence effort of accession countries towards EMU and ensure the implementation of sound economic policies thereafter.