The European Central Bank (ECB) is publishing today its Convergence Report 2012, which assesses the progress made by eight Member States of the European Union (EU) in fulfilling their obligations regarding the achievement of Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).
The report deals with Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Sweden. It examines whether a high degree of sustainable convergence has been achieved in these countries (economic convergence) and gauges compliance with the statutory requirements to be fulfilled by national central banks to become an integral part of the Eurosystem (legal convergence). When assessing the sustainability of convergence, the report also takes due account of both the new enhanced economic governance framework of the EU and the strength of the institutional environment in each country, including in the area of statistics.