Designing Poland’s Macroeconomic Strategy on the Way to the Euro Area

In this paper we discuss selected aspects of Poland’s road to the euro zone. Our attention focuses on the proper design of macroeconomic policy during the accession period. We address the issue of entering ERM II, with special attention to the choice of central parity, fluctuation bands, possible revaluation of the parity and sharing the burden of interventions with the ECB. Further we concentrate on the issue of a simultaneous fulfilment of all convergence criteria. We point at the central role of fiscal austerity in providing a save framework for fulfilling the inflation, exchange rate and, obviously, the public deficit criteria. The key role of timing is accentuated.