Central Banking and the Choice of Currency Regime in Accession Countries

Abstract

The subject matter of this paper is the design of appropriate Central Banking arrangements and exchange rate regimes for those former centrally planned Central and East European countries that are candidates for full membership in the European Union. We give an overview of the existing arrangements and point out to which extent monetary arrangements are restricted by conditions for entry both into the European Union and eventually into the European Monetary Union. Furthermore we investigate to which degree countries are fulfilling the accession criteria and compare their performance with the performance of earlier EU joiners like the countries of the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland and Greece.