Expanding the Eurozone. The stage of economic convergence for Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Romania

Abstract

Before the economic crisis started in 2009, joining the Eurozone was mainly conditioned by meeting the nominal convergence criteria. Because of the problems faced by the Eurozone member states during the crisis, the European institutions implemented a series of measures aimed at increasing the resilience of the Eurozone, and thus the conditions for new candidates became more and more difficult. Gradually, they imposed conditions related to reaching a high level of real convergence, maintaining macroeconomic balance, and, more recently, joining the Banking Union, at the same time as joining the Exchange Rate Mechanism II. The sustainability of the nominal convergence criteria depends on a high level of real convergence and on sound macroeconomic indicators that would not generate macroeconomic imbalance. Based on the above, this paper touches on these aspects for the following six European Union member states, which stand to adopt the euro: Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland and Romania.

Keywords

• convergence criteria
• euro area
• gdp per capita
• romania
• cesee eu member states