Slovak MPs on Thursday, April 16, rejected the proposal of Slovak National Party (SNS) MP Jozef Ďuračka to round off shopping bills to the nearest ten cents. The Slovak Finance Ministry had spoken against this proposal, the TASR newswire wrote.
Ďuračka had proposed rounding off bills to the nearest ten cents according to standard arithmetic rules, in order to limit the use of 1, 2 and 5 cent coins.
As a member of the eurozone, Slovakia cannot prohibit the use of these coins but it could set such rounding rules which would practically withdraw the smallest coins from circulation. The coins would remain valid for people to use but retailers would not give them back to the customers, practically resulting in their withdrawal from circulation, explained Ďuračka.
The Finance Ministry opposed the proposal since amendments regarding euro coins are not a subject of the Slovak legal framework for currency but rather are a matter of European Union legislation. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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17. Apr 2009 at 10:00