Slovakia has met the nominal inflation criterion for adoption of the euro, scheduled for January 2009. Slovenská Sporiteľňa analyst Michal Mušák told the SITA newswire that Slovakia met the criterion with a cushion of 1 percentage point, since the twelve-month average for harmonised inflation in Slovakia is now 2.2 percent. The reference value for evaluating the criterion is 3.2 percent. Mušák explained that the Slovak Republic met the qualification but that an assessment of whether this will be sustainable remains to be made. According to him, sustainability will probably be evaluated positively given the large cushion.
The average harmonised inflation for the twelve months from April 2007 to March 2008 will be decisive in the evaluation of whether Slovakia is meeting the criterion. According to the Maastricht criteria, the final figure must be no more than 1.5 percentage points above the average inflation rates of the three EU member states with the lowest inflation. SITA
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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