Abstract: The Czech Republic is closely integrated with other EU countries, especially Germany. These trade, investment and other economic links are very strong and strengthen over time. Despite this, public support for adopting the euro in the Czech Republic is historically very low and has even been decreasing over time. It is lower than, say, in Sweden, where the public voted no in a euro referendum and which, like the Czech Republic, does not have a euro opt-out. Why is it so? Can and should a small open economy within the EU retain its own currency and its autonomous monetary policy? Under what conditions?

In 1998 Mojmír Hampl became an Analyst and later a Senior Analyst in the monetary department of the Czech National Bank. In 1999, he was awarded the title of “Young Economist of the Year” by the Czech Economic Society. In 2002–2004, he was engaged in macroeconomic research and research on Central and Eastern European financial markets as an economist at Česká spořitelna – ERSTE Group. At that time, he was also an external adviser to the Minister of Finance of the Czech Republic in an expert group preparing a public finance reform proposal. In 2004–2006, he was a member of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Director of the Czech Consolidation Agency.

He is a member of the Academic Council of Škoda Auto University in Mladá Boleslav, a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, a member of the Board of Editors of Dvacáté století – The Twentieth Century, and a member of the Scientific Council of the Faculty of Management and Economics at Tomas Bata University in Zlín, he acts as a Research Associate at the Systemic Risk Centre at the London School of Economics and he regularly lectures at universities. In 2017 he was elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Czech Economic Society. He has published more than three hundred articles and studies on economic methodology, public choice theory, monetary policy, the economic theory of natural resources and general economic theory.

Mojmír Hampl was appointed a member of the CNB Bank Board on 1 December 2006 and a Vice-Governor of the CNB with effect from 1 March 2008. He was appointed CNB Vice-Governor for a second six-year term with effect from 1 December 2012. He has represented the CNB since 2008 in the EU Economic and Financial Committee and since 2011 in the Financial Stability Board’s Regional Consultative Group for Europe, where he has held the post of Co-Chair for the non-FSB member countries since 2017.