Convergence Criteria

Convergence criteria are the tests countries have to pass to enter into economic and monetary union as laid out in the Treaty of Maastricht:

1.) Inflation needs to be no more than 1.5 percent higher than that of the three EU countries with the lowest rates.

2.) Interest rates can not exceed those of the three most stable members by more than 2 percent.

3.) A country’s public debt has to be less than 60 percent of its annual gross domestic product.

4.) A country’s budget deficit has to be below 3 percent of its annual gross domestic product.

5.) A country's exchange rate is not permitted to have devalued during the two years prior to membership and rates must have been kept within 2.25 percent of the "normal" margins of Europe's exchange-rate mechanism.