From a legal perspective, this ensures continuity and equal treatment, from an economic perspective, the logic of lasting convergence has not changed and is all the more important when countries are at different stages of economic development.
As was pointed out in the last Convergence Report of the ECB, new Member States still have some way to go and nominal and real convergence with the Euro area differs considerably in some of the new Member States. Therefore, reform efforts and implementation of sound policies, especially in the fiscal field, are still required on the way to monetary union.