This paper analyses the link between the forthcoming EU enlargement and selected aspects of EU institutional reforms, namely decision-making rules in the European Central Bank and the status of the Eurogroup. It states that some earlier arguments calling for urgent ECB reform are based on...

We compare the convergence with German monetary policy of the Balkan and Mediterranean country candidates for EU membership with that of countries that have recently joined the EU. Significant linkages exist between German base money stock and that of recent members of the EU; the same holds...

Soon, euro area membership could more than double, with the vast majority of accession countries being quite different in economic terms compared with current members. Under the current decision-making system, this can lead to high decisionmaking costs and there is a risk that monetary policy...