Currency union is the next step on the way to a complete European integration. Association Agreements for countries accessing EU structures after 1 May 2004 do not contain the opt-out clause, which is synonymous to the obligation of their acceptance of the common currency. The basic condition of entering the eurozone is meeting the legal requirements and criteria of convergence which define detailed economic conditions. After 2004, euro began to function in Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia and Slovakia, and from 1st January 2011, after meeting all the criteria, Estonia joined the euroland as the seventeenth country. Other countries which are obliged to adopt the euro, Poland included, are at various stages of preparation, but according to data from February 2011 none of them as yet meets the convergence criteria.
The article presents the results of a study on dependencies between selected indicators of the openness of an economy on the one hand and the degree of its integration with the eurozone and the perspective of adopting this common currency on the other. It follows that satisfying the criteria of convergence is more important than openness of economy. If Poland wants to adopt the common currency it should place emphasis on other criteria than openness of economy, such as economic growth, gross domestic product or the state of public finances.
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