Monetarna politika u Europskoj uniji

Euro was introduced as a unit of account on 1 January 1999 within eleven countries, and after three years, namely on 1 January 2002, euro banknotes and coins were introduced into the circulation in twelve EU Member States. The euro is now the official currency within nineteen of the twenty-eight Member States of the European Union. Since 2013, the Republic of Croatia has been an equal member of the European Union, and by signing the treaty it has undertaken to enter the euro area when the country's economy is ready to demonstrate its willingness to comply with the convergence criteria. The current biggest problem for meeting the convergence criteria is the excessive debt and budget deficits that arose during the 2008 economic crisis. In recent years, there has been a slight economic growth in the form of a reduction in public debt and a marked increase in gross domestic product. Because of the above, the Government of the Republic of Croatia is for the first time seriously considering a strategy for the introduction of the euro. Thus, at the end of 2017, the Euro strategy document was presented to the general public. After the presentation of this document, a serious public debate began, explaining all the positives and negatives that the introduction of the euro could cause, as well as evaluating the readiness or criteria that the country meets and those required for the accession of the Republic of Croatia to the euro area. The purpose of this paper is to explain the introduction of the Euro currency in the EU member states, Required the criteria for the introduction, to evaluate whether Croatia fulfils all the criteria