There are a few points that make that there are some doubts about the introduction of the euro. The most important point is: will there be enough countries who want to participate in the euro? And if so which countries? The United Kingdom had inserted in the treaty that they will not participate even if they meet the criteria set for joining the euro. The other countries of the European Union do want to participate yet for some of these countries there is the risk that they will not be able to meet the criteria for the EMU. The countries with a strong currency would like to set stricter criteria , because otherwise the euro will be a weak currency. In which case it would be a disadvantage for them to participate. Yet since the EMU also has to take into account the fact that the euro can not be introduced if there are too few countries that participate, it might be quite difficult for the EMU to decide on this kind of matters. So, in fact it is not sure at all that the euro will be introduced. At this moment it depends very much on the question whether there are enough countries who participate, like we said before. If an important country decided that it would not participate, the introduction of the euro would probably be delayed. Probably the criteria of the EMU would change then also in order to make it possible for a country to join. There are some new countries who want to participate in the European Union in order to be able to be a member of the EMU.

In our latest news page you can read what the papers say about the euro and the countries that will participate.