When Should the Central Europeans Join EMU?

The paper concludes that accession to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is firmly in the interest of the central and eastern European countries. However, from the perspective of incumbent EMU membersu0092 interests, one cannot avoid the conclusion that the arguments are more finely balanced. This especially relates to the slow growing incumbents, who are also likely to become members of the u0093coreu0094 group. Given the opposing interests between the two sides and the fact that it is impossible to prevent EU members from joining the EMU if they fulfil the Maastricht criteria, we can expect to see an intensified effort by the Commission and certain incumbent Member States to dissuade central and eastern European countries from joining the EMU. There may even be an attempt to return to the idea of tightening the accession criteria, although this would be hard to square with the principle of u0093equality between present and future Member Statesu0094.