EMU enlargement: will Great Britain join?

Abstract

At this moment in time, from all the 27 European Union member states only 13 are involved in the 3rd stage of EMU: the 11 „ founding members” which begun to use the euro from 1999, Greece which has joined the euro zone from 2001, and Slovenia starting 2007. From the group of the 14 countries which are outside the euro zone, only Great Britain and Denmark have a permanent derogation (the opt-out clause) which means that they will join the euro zone only when they decide to (and of course if the nominal convergence criteria will be met). In the exposed context, the present paper makes a synthetic analysis of Great Britain’s perspectives of joining the euro zone, relying on the stages and conditions established in Maastricht and also by analyzing the specific British tests and governmental plans.EMU, enlargement, Great Britain, euro