The Economic and Monetary Union in Europe represents an unprecedented challenge to the European Union. The EMU objectives will fully be achieved only if adequate, effective and efficient legal and organizational arrangements are in place upon its final, Third Stage. The article analyses these arrangements and attempts to evaluate their chance to become an important contribution to the success of the EMU. A basic qualifier of whether or not this success will have been achieved by the end of the Third Stage of the Union is the acceptance of the single currency - euro - by international monetary and financial markets and the EMU citizens. A prerequisite for the achievement of this goal is the assurance of a high status to the euro as a stable currency enjoying credible safeguards of its value.

The legal framework of the euro pertains primarily to the critical transitional period between the introduction of the single currency on January 1, 1999 to the placement of the euro and cent banknotes and coins into circulation (in lieu of banknotes and coins denominated in national currencies of the EMU countries) on June 30, 2002 at the latest. Legal arrangements adopted in the Union, pertaining to both contractual and administrative milieus tend to preserve material content of the original legal relationship involving a payment by one of its parties. On the other hand, they allow for adequate alterations of this relationship if it should or must be modified in order to preserve its material continuity.

The essential part of the legal and organizational framework of the EMU are Treaty rules targeted at the achievement and maintenance of convergence criteria as well as these rules formulated in secondary law which impose on the Member States an obligation to maintain sound economic and especially fiscal policy. This obligation is enforceable through a set of disciplinary measures provided for both the Treaty and , so called, the Stability and Growth Pact.

Equally important for the stability of the euro and hence to the credible foundations of its present and future international status are regulations which are to assure adequate level of stability of the euro external, and especially, internal value. Critical for the achievement of this objective are statutory rules concerning the structure and competencies of the European System of Central Banks. These rules emphasize independence of all the components of the ESCB - European Central Bank and national central banks - of the EU institutions or governments of Member States. As a result, the ESCB is free from a direct pressure of a political agenda in the formulation and implementation of its single monetary policy.

A clear ramification of this legal and organizational arrangement is a quite independent and multidirectional information policy of the ECB. The most important counterparts of this policy include the public and the governments of the EU Member States as well as the Council. It is expected that the ECB will avail itself a broad range of the information policy instruments in order to present and explain its stance. At present, objectives of the ECB information strategy include two important goals. One goal is to prepare the public to use the euro and operate under a new price scale. Another, equally critical goal of the ECB is to convince all the international money and financial markets agents of its independence, competence and credibility.

Poland needs to take the changes occurring in the EMU into account in its policy. The myriad of so far adopted in the Union arrangements require some reflective preparations of various nature. Most significantly, Poland must maintain and nurture the independence of its central bank - the National Bank of Poland (NBP). Also, it must bring about various macroeconomic changes. Especially, Poland must reduce its inflation and fulfill other convergence criteria. The medium term monetary policy strategy formulated by Poland´s Monetary Policy Council (RPP) indeed emphasizes the necessity of achieving these basic criteria for membership in the EMU. It is worth noting that despite the goals and objectives which are consistent with the EMU, the NBP and RPP have opted for somewhat different monetary policy instruments and targets. For example, according to the announcements of the RPP, Poland is to pursue inflation targeting, whereas the ECB is pursuing a mixture of monetary and inflation targeting. NBP still uses minimum reserves to a greater extent than the ECB. Moreover, Poland still has to somewhat carefully manage its foreign exchange policy, whereas this is not that high agenda issue in the EMU now.