Hungary’s path to the euro: five tests for a sustainable adoption strategy - Bruegel

The Hungarian government elected in April 2026 supports euro adoption and aims to meet the adoption conditions around 2030. For adoption to happen, certain criteria must be met, but these can mask fiscal weakness, credit booms and competitiveness losses that become harder to correct without national monetary and exchange-rate policies. We propose five domestic readiness tests for the Hungarian government to consider in its euro-adoption strategy. These would help assess whether Hungary’s institutions, policies, productive capacity, shock absorbers and proposed forint-euro exchange rate will be sufficiently ready for it to prosper within the euro area, while identifying the necessary reforms and sequence. In a context of a budget deficit near 7.