The Slovak Republic - Economic and Legal Aspects of Joining the European Monetary Union

Establishment of the European Union and the European Monetary Union is being considered one of the most important stages of the integration in Europe. By joining the European Union member states agree also with joining Economic and Monetary Union. This is legally stated in both the EC-treaties and the EU-treaty. However, it is necessary to fulfil several economic conditions and adopt various legal acts both on the level of the EMU and national level. Even if the biggest attention is being paid to the fulfilment of the nominal convergence criteria, legal aspect of the whole process of the Euro conversion is at least as important as economic aspect. This paper seeks to identify economic and legal aspects of joining the European Monetary Union by the means of the Slovak republic case and to generalize the knowledge and suggestions for their applications also in other countries. The aim of the paper is being fulfilled by using the method of abstraction, historical and logical method, comparative method and method of generalization. Slovakia became member of the EMU on the 1st January 2009. Because the real costs and benefits of Slovakia's membership in the EMU will be evident only in the longer period, even more it is necessary to consider also impact of the world financial and economic crises, it is not possible to quantify exactly all the costs and benefits yet. That is why the paper concerns mostly on theoretical and assumed ones. However, it is already possible to feel some advantages and guarantees so important for citizens, business entities as well as for the further economic growth and development.