The paper addresses the overall assessment of the costs and benefits relating to Poland's EMU accession and its ability to fulfil the Maastricht criteria in the medium-term. It promotes the wide approach of the theory of optimum currency areas (OCA) focusing on the net gains stemming from monetary integration. Authors draw the conclusion that the long-term balance of potential economic consequences of EMU participation for Poland is positive and therefore it is worth joining the eurozone as soon as possible. In this context, the fast achievement of EMU membership should be a priority of Poland's macroeconomic policy in the forthcoming years. Nevertheless, the fastest possible track to EMU accession will inevitably require immediate macroeconomic policy reactions in Poland, which should be focused on increasing the wage flexibility, fostering FDI inflow contributing to sustainable cyclical convergence as well as delivering sustainable fiscal retrenchment. The authors argue that Poland's future ability to fulfil the Maastricht criterion on exchange rate stability will, in particularly, require curtailing structural deficit of public finances, managing the size of external imbalance on the eve of and during ERM II participation, strengthening the structural fundamentals of the economy as well as determining central parity level consistent with the long-term equilibrium exchange rate.