EXCHANGE RATE OF THE SLOVENIAN TOLAR IN THE CONTEXT OF SLOVENIA'S INCLUSION IN THE EU AND IN THE EMU 9ODGLPLU /DYUDþ WORKING PAPER No. 1, 1999 EXCHANGE RATE OF THE SLOVENIAN TOLAR IN THE CONTEXT OF SLOVENIA'S INCLUSION IN THE EU AND IN THE EMU 9ODGLPLU /DYUDþ WORKING PAPER No. 1, 1999 E-mail address of the author:
[email protected] Editor of the WP series: Peter Stanovnik © 1999 Inštitut za ekonomska raziskovanja This paper is also available on Internet home page: http//www.ier.si Ljubljana, January 1999 2 Introduction Creation of the European economic and monetary union (EMU) and successive introduction of the European single currency, the euro, is a historic event, which will lead to fundamental changes in the EU economies. These changes will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the economies of the Central European transition countries, candidates for a full membership in the EU, similarly as the preparations of the EU countries for the EMU and their efforts to meet the Maastricht convergence criteria have already affected the Central European economies. Policy-makers and other decision-makers at various levels (enterprises, banks, government bodies) will have to adapt to the changing environment, first by adjusting to the irrevocably fixed exchange rates among the EU currencies participating in the EMU and then by adjusting to the introduction of the euro and to the elimination of national currencies in the euro zone. This paper, however, does not concentrate on these otherwise important issues of the impact of the EMU on the Central European countries. It focuses primarily on the most direct questions related to the EMU for these countries - why, how and when Slovenia and the other Central European EU candidate countries will be ready to join the EMU.