THE GOVERNMENT’S plenipotentiary for euro adoption, Igor Barát, believes that by joining the eurozone at the beginning of 2009 Slovakia managed two achievements not reached by other countries which had adopted the euro.
The first is a slowdown in the growth in prices after introduction of the new currency and the second is an increase in the number of people who still positively perceive the new currency after its implementation.
“We are in all probability the first country where inflation slowed down after the euro was adopted,” Barát said, as quoted by the SITA newswire.
He said he realises that the slowdown of inflation was not in any way the result of the euro changeover but was, rather, due to external impacts caused by the economic crisis.
Barát said the second achievement is that Slovaks perceive the decision to adopt the euro even more positively now than before its adoption.
Public opinion polls conducted in November 2008 indicated that some 58 percent of respondents were satisfied with the decision to adopt the euro; by March 2009 a later poll found that this number had grown to as many as 74 percent of respondents.
