CAPITAL ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT IN CROATIA AND DEBT CRISIS IN EUROPEAN MONETARY UNION: A REAPPRAISAL

The global financial crisis has changed views on capital controls as economic policy measures. Capital account liberalization has been replaced with the new strategy of capital account management (CAM) and capital flows measures (CFM). Liberalization must necessarily be coordinated with stronger regulation and control of the financial markets in order to avoid the instability of the financial sector in Croatia and a possible financial crisis, and must be implemented with macroprudential policy of the central banks. We have to reconsider the former capital account liberalization strategy, because of the eurozone debt crisis. There are risks of financial contagion from PIIGS countries, in particular the crisis in Italy which could have an important impact on Croatia. Croatia’s accession to EMU involves three phases: the first phase is the period before accession to EU, when the country still can pursue an independent monetary policy and can freely choose its foreign exchange regime. The second phase starts with accession to EU and ends with accession to EMU. In this period the country enters the ERM2 mechanism. The third period involves accession to EMU and the ECB system, the introduction of the euro and the abolishment of the national currency. After an optimistic scenario, Croatia could become an EU member by mid-2013, but we would not enter ERM2 until 2017. A worsening of the recession in eurozone could have a high negative impact on the speed of Croatia’s entry in EMU, which could be thus realized in 2022.