Much attention was devoted to the so-called asymmetry of the Finnish economy. While macroeconomic trends in EU countries such as Germany, France and the Benelux countries usually were broadly similar, economic developments in Finland diverged a lot. There were differences in the both the timing of the fluctuations and the amplitude of the fluctuations, which was much greater in Finland than elsewhere.
As the single monetary policy was to be tuned according to the economic situation of the whole euro area, it was feared that the single monetary policy could be inappropriate or even grossly inappropriate for the Finnish economy.