"For the enlargement of the European Union to be successful, candidate countries must coherently and simultaneously pursue both real convergence with EU income and welfare levels and "nominal convergence" (sustained non-inflationary growth conforming with Maastricht criteria, in order ultimately to join the European Monetary Union). Using 1995-2000 data, the author explores the respective employment and labour dimensions of both real and nominal convergence. He then discusses the labour market policies needed to enable candidate countries to retain some hold over macroeconomic policy and, thus, to ensure the requisite coherence between the two."

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