THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF ROMANIA'S ADERATION TO THE EURO ZONE AND ADOPTION OF THE UNIQUE CURRENCY

The accession to the Economic and Monetary Union, though not a criterion of accessing the European Union, involves the compliance with the convergence criteria of Maastricht: stability of the exchange rate, of interest rates, of the inflation, of the external debt and budgetary deficit. Even if the joining of the EMU represents therefore no conditioning of accessing the EU as a full rights member and, maybe, no priority of the candidate countries, the consequences of this option must be seriously put into balance, taking into account the most the fragile macro-economical stability of the pretending countries, such as Romania. A major regime change, as the monetary unification, is clearly made when there are strong motivations given by benefits, but such a change involves costs, risks and difficulties. The adoption of the unique currency in an unsuitable time can have more bad consequences than positive ones.