Abstract
Over the last few years, twelve countries, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Cyprus, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia in 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania in 2007, joined the European Union. This came as the result of a long political process, followed by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. When these countries joined the European Union, they were soon promised by the members of the Eurozone, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain that they would join the Euro quickly, most probably within a couple of years. For Eastern European and Baltic countries, understood here as the twelve new European Union members, excluding Malta and Cyprus, joining the Euro was one of the key advantages of joining the European Union, as this meant that they would become part of one of the greatest currency zones in the world, which would certainly give a boost to their economies and enhance their integration into the global markets.
