Echoing the european monetary integration in the czech republic

Even in the case of an optimistic scenario of joining the EU at an early stage in the next century, CE countries are highly unlikely to participate in the take-off stage of EMU. Instead, they are expected to address some more elementary issues related to their transition processes. But the fact of being a small and open economy implies a high degree of macroeconomic discipline, in many respects not so much unlike that embedded in the Maastricht convergence criteria. Whatever disputes many surround the Maastricht convergence criteria, one can scarcely deny that they do suggest directions in which CE economies need to further upgrade their fundamentals. They put aside, however, so-called real convergence measured by the level of GDP per capita. The currency crisis in the Czech Republic delivered the lesson that the growth rates, if not underpinned by a healthy macroeconomic background, are short-lived and bring only lags Into the catching-up process.