Abstract Membership in the euro area should presumably bring benefits to member countries. But these can only be proven in a comparison between countries on either side of the "currency frontier". The “Visegrad countries” - Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia - are selected as comparable countries with similar cultural, social and economic characteristics. The combination of sociological and economic indicators should overcome the limitations of the technocratic approach. However, tracking these indicators over the period from 2009 to 2021 does not prove the advantages of euro area membership.

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