ABSTRACT
On 5 April 2009 an International Monetary Fund (IMF) report was leaked to the Financial Times, the influential international business daily newspaper, that suggested the IMF was considering recommending to Central and Eastern European Union member states that they unilaterally adopt the euro without having to meet the convergence criteria first (Wagstyl 2009). It was a response to the turbulence on foreign currency markets that had led to devaluations and downward pressure on national currencies of Central and Eastern European Union member states not in the euro area. Before and after this alleged IMF plea, numerous analysts remarked that it was not economically logical that several of these currencies were not in the euro area (cf. Münchau 2009). The size of their economies is so small relative to the euro area that the economic impact of those countries on the stability of the euro area would be negligible. Moreover, there would be many advantages for smaller central and east European Union member states to euroise unilaterally (Buiter and Sibert 2006; Roubini 2009). The response by the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission was to maintain the policy that member states need to meet the convergence criteria before they may be eligible to join and strongly discouraged unilateral euroisation.
