European Monetary Union (EMU) and its enlargement to prospective members in central and eastern Europe is a politically highly desired process, given that everything works out smoothly. The future eurozone will show a much higher degree of heterogeneity than now. The CEEC are in the process of...

This paper has been prepared as a part of a broader Ezoneplus project that evaluates European Monetary Union (EMU) and its enlargement to prospective members in central and eastern Europe. The project is financially supported by European Commission (HPSE-CT-2001-00084). It contains the following...

Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries are expected to join the European monetary union (EMU) in a couple of years after their accession to the EU. According to the official views of the European Commission and the European central bank (ECB), monetary integration of CEE countries in the...

The main topic of the paper is optimal dynamics, i.e., timing of entry of the accession countries in the ERM 2 and EMU. Some of the crucial questions addressed in the paper are as follows: a) Should accession countries aim at an early or a delayed entry into the EMU? b) What are economic and...

This paper first touches upon the definition and purpose of the Maastricht convergence criteria, and next analyses the rules, procedures, methodology and interpretation of meeting the Maastricht convergence criteria. It is shown how acceding countries presently fulfill the Maastricht convergence...