ASYMMETRIC EFFECTS OF ECB MONETARY POLICY ON EMERGING EU ECONOMIES

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union experienced a period of persistent inflation driven by energy shocks, supply chain disruptions, and the rapid recovery of domestic demand. In 2022, the inflation rate reached a record high of 10.6% in the euro area and 11.5% in the EU, prompting the European Central Bank (ECB) to implement the most restrictive monetary policy in its recent history. Between 2022 and 2023, the ECB successively increased its policy rate to 4%, followed by a gradual easing phase beginning in 2024. This study examines the effects of the ECB’s monetary policy on emerging EU economies — namely Romania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Croatia — which have experienced the policy’s impact asymmetrically compared to the core euro area countries. Recent data indicate that while average inflation in the euro area declined to around 2.3% in 2025, it remained between 4% and 6.5% in most emerging EU economies, reflecting structural differences in monetary transmission and domestic vulnerabilities. The paper aims to highlight the degree of nominal convergence after 2022 and the resilience of monetary policy transmission channels in a context of prolonged global uncertainty.Preliminary results suggest that while the restrictive monetary stance contributed to price stabilization, it also deepened growth disparities and imposed higher economic adjustment costs on emerging EU members with partial integration into the euro area.