The Suitability of Adopting the Euro in the New European Union Member States: Application of the Theory of the Optimum Currency Areas

The article deal with optimum currency area (OCA) theory and examines which of the new EU member states are suitable candidates for the euro extended by EU-10 countries membership. The OCA index which is based on predicted value of nominal exchange rate variability is used to consider the suitability of monetary union membership. The index is estimated in two steps. First, relationship between the volatility of the nominal exchange rate and the fulfilment of the OCA criteria is estimated on a sample of 11 countries (EU-10 and the euro area) over the period 1999 - 2009. Subsequently, OCA index is calculated as the predicted value of the nominal exchange rate variability EU-10 countries to the euro. The lowest index values achieved the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary and Estonia. Those countries seem most appropriate candidates for adopting the single currency euro as compared with other EU-10 countries.