Implications of the inflation targeting strategy in some of the European Union member countries

Taking into consideration the necessity of stabilising the inflation rate at a level consistent with an economic policy strategy that assumes Romania will join the euro-zone at the earliest date possible the paper aims to underline the main aspects related to the implementation of the inflation targeting strategy in Romania by realising a comparatively analysis with the experience of other former socialist countries, like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, which have successfully implemented this strategy, with good results in the disinflation process. The results of our paper highlight that the medium-term perspective of the monetary policy based on a direct inflation target lead to the enhancement of the flexibility of Romanian monetary policy in response to unexpected events and supported the preservation of low inflationary expectations, thus building up favourable foundations for high economic growth, despite the fact that the inflation rate hasn’t been yet stabilised at a low level in order to fulfil the inflation criterion, which is one of the conditions for euro-zone membership, this still representing a challenge for the Romanian authorities.