All EU Member States are committed to adopting the euro once they fulfil the necessary conditions, except for Denmark, which has an opt-out.5 All countries must strive to fulfil all the convergence criteria. Their readiness to adopt the euro is assessed by the ECB and the European Commission6 and described in their convergence reports.
In line with the role given to the ECB by the Treaties, let me focus here on readiness and the role of ERM II in the euro area accession process. ERM II was introduced in 1999 as one of the ways to assess a country’s convergence with the euro area.