On 15 March 2010 the Association for International Affairs organised in cooperation with the Metropolitan University Prague a public round table Year of Euro in Slovakia. Igor Barát, former representative of the Slovak government for adoption of the Euro, member of the Board of Directors of Poštová banka a. s., Petr Mach, economist, leader of The Free Citizens Party and Pavel Mertlík, chief economist of Raiffeisenbank, external lecturer at the Faculty of social sciences, Charles University accepted our invitation. Jan Žižka, E15 daily associate editor, moderated the event
The experts evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of the adoption of the single currency and compared the development in the Czech Republic and Slovakia during the crisis from the point of view of two countries which share similar conditions, but use different currencies – one a national one, the other euro. Everybody agreed that one year is not a period long enough to make a final conclusion in what concerns the impact euro has had on Slovak economy, and that at least 5 years will have to pass. A vivid debate followed the contributions of panelists, in which topics such as the Maastricht criteria were brought up. While commenting on the issue, Petr Mach remarked that many countries think that the rule according to which governmental deficit should not exceed 3% of GDP means, that they should attain the 3% in the good years and then simply surpass it during the bad years. The experts also shared the opinion that while the debts of both countries are not sky high, the real threat is posed by their tendency to grow rapidly.
- Organizer
- AMO
- In cooperation with
- Metropolitan University Prague, EurActiv.cz, E15 and Strategie