I. IntroductionAccording to Lane (2006), the European Monetary Union (EMU) began in 1999. Following his analysis and reasoning, this article will seek to analyze the purported impacts of the said action in light of their inflation rates and the proportion of their portfolio assets allocated to other members of the euro zone. In addition, the author of this article will qualitatively focus on the current Asian context to examine the relevance of a monetary union on the continent. Additionally, this study is limited to the following European countries:1. Belgium2. Germany3. Ireland4. Greece5. Spain6. France7. Italy8. Luxembourg9. Netherlands10. Austria11. Portugal12. FinlandII. The impact of the Maastricht Treaty on inflation rates (2008-2013)According to Lane, the 1992 Maastricht Treaty was adopted to ensure a sufficient degree of monetary convergence among EMU members (2006). According to Eurostat, the Maastricht Treaty is defined as follows: "The convergence criteria, sometimes also called the Maastricht criteria, are conditions that the Member States of the European Union must meet in order to join the economic and monetary union and use the euro as the official currency. » (http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/index.php/Glossary:Maastricht_criteria)The said criteria required that countries wishing to use the euro as their official currency meet, among others, the following criteria (Lane , 2006):1. Have an inflation rate of no more than 1.5 percentage points compared to the three best performing Member States one year before the inspection, and 2. Limit their budget deficit to no more than 3% of their GDP and accumulate public debt not exceeding 60% of their GDP. With the...... middle of paper...... Central Bank, 1 (3), 73-116. Baele, L., Ferrando, A., Horodahl, P., Krylova, E. and Monnet, C. (2004). Measuring financial integration in the euro area. European Central Bank Occasional Paper No. 12. Honohan, P. and Lane, P. (2003). Diverging inflation rates under EMU. Economic Policy, 18(37), 357-394.Lane, P. (2006). The real effects of European monetary union. Journal of EconomicPerspectives, 20 (4), 47-66. Lane, P. (2006). Global bond holdings and the euro zone. International Journal of Central Banking, 2 (2), 1-23. Mongelli, F.P. and Vega, J.L. (2006). What effects does EMU have on the eurozone and its member countries? Working Paper Series No. 599. Pagano, M. and von Thadden, EL (2004). The European bond market within the framework of EMU. OxfordReview of Economic Policy, 20 (4), 531-554.HM Treasury. (2003). Study on the European Monetary Union. London.