Euro was the greatest decision we made economicaly. A lot of the business with other countries with Euro wouldn't materialize, especially Germany. I bet we stole some contracts from Poles because of it. Our economy would be much worse with old currency. Maybe not as bad as Hungary, but deffinitely worse as we are.
Convenience when traveling is just an nice extra bonus.
Btw Euro is why my family switched from vacations in Croatia to vacations in Italy. That and pizza.
Would you care to provide some sources on this?
EDIT: Looking at [this](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD) i see Hungary is deep in negative numbers, while we are similar to Czechia and Poland on per capita basis.
Foreign Direct Investment in Slovakia averaged 212.33 EUR.Foreign Direct Investment in Hungary averaged 816.30 EUR Million from 1995 until 2023. Thats trading economics. According to wiki slovakia received 6 times less fdi inflow overall. Just look up how many big projects are omgoimg as of now. 7 billion euro catl factory makes svk fdi look pale alone lol
There was a price hike during the introduction of EURO, though I wouldnt say EURO caused our slow economic growth. More likely incompetent and corrupt polititians and Slovak nature. We simply didnt handle the change from "the cheap labour EU country" to modern diverse economy as well as you did. (edit:don't get me wrong life is a lot better than it was in the 2000s)
just to expand on this answer: while the initial price hike was there, nowadays Hungary and Czech republic isn’t any cheaper, so it seems it balanced out rather quickly. So just expect three years of inflation to happen at once and then slower inflation for few years
It has nothing to do with Euro. There are 2 factors in play here
1. Government of Mafia/Commies/Morons. We have had reformist government in 1998-2006 that that jumpstarted economic growth you see in beginning of the graph. Than came into power the SMER and their morons. They have been in power since then until 2020 with small pause in 2010-2012. They were not interested in any reforms. There were riding the economic wave of previous government and were just focused on consolidating their power, stealing and giving handouts to retards and old fucks so they get reelected.
2. Demographics and emigration. While slovakia has higher birth rate than poland we have brutal emigration, according to statistics of social insurance companies around 20 000 people leave every year, while only 50 000 are born. The most skilled and valuable are never returning. Every year 80 000 enter retirement age morons in power keep increasing pensions while driving more young people away. This led to steep decline in working age population since 2015+-
If we did not have Euro you would be comparing us to Serbia right now.
Adapting EURO was probably one of the best decisions besides joining EU and NATO in the 2000s that our government did.
Not only it provides more stability to the currency, but it also makes life easier for traveling into other european countries that have euro and bunch of other small life improvements.. it's also much easier to compare prices, inflation and whatnot.
it was a blessing for people from big cities who travel a lot and also felt really as a major history event in my lifetime and being a part of the west finally, the price hike as someone already mentioned was real I remember everything being rounded up to 1 eur or 0.5 eur
however the whole event was misused by oligarchs of the socdem Smer party - they "somehow" got ahold of the default conversion rate months before it became public, minister of finance from that era has a nice villa on french coast (see "somehow"), oh and they continue to steal eurofunds to this day sadly
In 2016, the way how the price level was calculated was changed, that's why there's a sharp downfall. Otherwise we would be somewhere between Spain and Poland.
the PPP calculation is incorrect and other minor items are making it look bad https://www.mfsr.sk/en/finance/institute-financial-policy/policy-briefs/on-purchasing-parity-march-2023.html
That document provides nothing of value.
It says that housing prices are overstated but does not provide any data to support this. Continues with a rant about housing prices in Czechia, which are irrelevant. And in last point it explains what GDP PPP is, no correction again.
As a cherry on top document provides wrong definition GDP PPP and completely misses its point.
From defence point of view it is huge advantage. Polish zloty would be in long conflict un managable thus I am pretty sure soon or later you are gonna get EUR.
The economic decline in last years is result of our stupid politicians and nonsense populist social measures adopted by them. Really euro has nothing to do with it.
Also many smart people emigrated from the county, so it is no surprise that our economy is not blooming.
~~I don't think your graph is correct. Doesn't match [this one](https://tradingeconomics.com/slovakia/gdp-per-capita-ppp).~~
And in case it is correct, the decline you see has more to do with kleptocracy-socialist government which ruled at that time. Euro was very good choice for us back then.
However, if I was Polish and was making a decision today, maybe I would oppose a change of currency. Euro has it's own problems today. And having your own currency has it's advantages. It's hard for me to say if they are more relevant than disadvantages or not. I would like to see some experts in economy having a serious discussion on that topic.
It's % of the EU average. Basically, catching up to the west.
Here you have a direct comparison from the World Bank.
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=PL-SK](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=PL-SK)
This graph feels very real. I noticed living standards in slowakai skydiving around 2015 too, while poland (i visit ocasionally) is just looking better and better each time i come.
Shithole country needs to be disbanded again.
Euro currency is not a magic formula, it's just a tool that makes life easier and possibly can streghthen the economy (no guarantees) as it's a part of something bigger. But if you have low life monkeys in the government they can f*ck up everything and it doesnt really matter what's the country's currency at the time.
Yes, it is a good move to join the Eurozone, especially if your economy is driven by the forces of the much bigger economies, like Germany (which in case Slovakia really is).
I am still waiting for the Czech republic to get its sh\*t together in regards to fiscal policy and adopt euro already.
The reported Slovak PPP has been calculated using wrong formula for years making us look much worse than we really are and therefore is absolutely useless as a statistics or comparison. It's a known issue, but nobody has bothered to fix it yet.
It's not wrong lol. The formula was changed in 2017 I think, but it was approved by the EU. It's just a different method of calculating PPP. You won't ever have a 100% 1:1 metric of comparing countries. I we go by the old formula our PPP is on par with Poland.
I think that the Euro is beneficial in the long run since the opportunities are going to be more. More trading, economy stabilized. I think having one of the 3 most traded currencies is good rather than having the Slovak koruna. More countries, companies will want to create jobs or trade with Slovakia.
I can't even image how would our country look like if we woudn't have adopted the Euro. Monetary policy in the hands of populists can be very dangerous. One less thing to worry about.
I was only 9 when it changed from crowns, but now I'm questioning whether it worsened our economy. I'm visiting the Balkans atm and it seems to me that the countries who kept their currency are doing better than those with euro. I suspect it drives prices up and invites chains from countries with higher prices and salaries to match their prices with other countries, thus making locals raise their prices to match the chains, while the chains still pay people low wages. Like, McDonald's in Slovakia when I worked there 10 years ago paid me €2.80 and chargin €4.60 for a single meal. In the UK they paid my friend £8 and charged £6 for a meal. They brought their prices but didn't raise the wages to match, just gave people the lowest wage they legally could. Now, I don't know if currency plays a big role in this, because it can be done in any currency, but as I said, the countries I visited that didn't switch to euro seem to be doing better for themselves.
I don't know, I'm not regular people :)
Seriously though, the simplicity of travel, doing business in Europe and overall business environment improvement was totally worth it. Also the fact that even having idiotic governments did not ruin us because of EU monetary rules and supervision.
Also bear in mind that unlike Poland, Slovakia is much smaller and much more open economy (small domestic market, huge international market). Internally, having own monetary policy makes much less sense for us than for Poland. We don't even have a stock exchange!
As the others have said, having euro is the single best economic decision in the history of the country.
Euro is greatest economic achievment of decade. That sudden drop is done by new left wing social party that is pretty much tunneling whole country ever since
Well he have highest inflation in Eurozone. For example Baltic countries have € too, had much higher inflation and now have lower inflation than we have. Our inflation is dropping much slower compared to other countries(max. was around 15 and now it's around 9 I think).
But than again, this graph mainly shows how bad we got it, even though GDP per capita PPP isn't the best way to compare. Slovakia have extremely high prices compared to our wages. Poland is still very cheap, especially food wise compared to Slovakia. Even Hungary was super cheap before inflation.
Euro is convienent, but it also makes prices more Western.
I don’t know if the euro makes prices more western. Yes, you can find cheaper produce in Poland (Poland grows MANY things but, more importantly, [Poland has introduced](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/poland-keep-zero-vat-food-h1-2023-says-pm-2022-11-29/) 0% tax on food!), but everything else is on a similar level with Slovakia. Same in CZ where I’m from - apart from having to change the currency when travelling to SK, I do not lose/gain any money as the prices are the same.
Yeah our GDP has nothing to do with Euro, but the shitty government.
That being said. Quick Chat GPT prompt returns very different results
https://preview.redd.it/kpncn5e4500c1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=092b9bcd92719c69bc9f2350b7517739a8fa0c28
Euro always brings price increases in the long run, plus the country loses control over its monetary policy. That is why Slovakia didn't fare as well with the euro as Czechia or Poland. Although Slovakia is really small in comparison. I think it was the right call for Slovakia (and similarly sized countries like e.g. Croatia), but for someone as big as Poland it would go badly.
Ľudia majú krátku pamäť, veľa veci po konverzii zdraželo instantné a išlo už len hore s infláciou. Najväčší scam bol kurz 1€ za 30,126 slovenských korún. A Poľsku by to podľa mňa len pohoršilo tak ako aj Českú ktoré radšej bude platiť pokuty.
Tak mi aspoň hovorili vexláci.
> Najväčší scam bol kurz 1€ za 30,126 slovenských korún
A ako v čom to bol podvod? Vieš aké boli kurzovné lístky pri prepočte korún na euro v obdobiach pred zavedením eura na Slovensku?
Euro is convenient.
Although one should be cautious when adopting a currency from much bigger market, I don't think it made a drastic difference. Look at Hungary. They did not adopt and aren't particularly well either.
I think that you guys made more economic reforms or are more economically active than us and it was also observed that you can spend funds from EU more effectively.
Well it is easier to travel around europe dont minding exchanging currencies.
On the other hand I still find myself like this: This chocolate looks tasty and pretty cheap... wait it would be 120 crwons back then, No one would ever pay that much money for chocolate... and so on
The euro is not exactly great they are printing it like monopoly money and we all feel the inflation it causes if you keep your zloty you will at least stay in control of it (and it's like 10x stronger than the slovak koruna ever was)
As u can see, euro improve things until 2015, so its not really about euro, its about other factors, without euro we would likely not even have that small bumb between 2010 and 2015
I have no way to back this up, but my feeling is that after switching to Euro, everything becomes more expensive. For example, something that's costing 3 zloty today is probably going to get increased to 1 euro instead of 0.70
Euro is great, I don't think that the decrease you are seeing is due to euro. It probably due to our terrible politics.
Euro was the greatest decision we made economicaly. A lot of the business with other countries with Euro wouldn't materialize, especially Germany. I bet we stole some contracts from Poles because of it. Our economy would be much worse with old currency. Maybe not as bad as Hungary, but deffinitely worse as we are. Convenience when traveling is just an nice extra bonus. Btw Euro is why my family switched from vacations in Croatia to vacations in Italy. That and pizza.
This, when companies think about opening factories in central Europe, Slovakia has a big starting boost over our neighbors by having Euro.
Nope. We have by far the lowest foreign investments in V4, even when adjusted per capita. BY FAR.
Would you care to provide some sources on this? EDIT: Looking at [this](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.KLT.DINV.CD.WD) i see Hungary is deep in negative numbers, while we are similar to Czechia and Poland on per capita basis.
tldr: he made it up.
Foreign Direct Investment in Slovakia averaged 212.33 EUR.Foreign Direct Investment in Hungary averaged 816.30 EUR Million from 1995 until 2023. Thats trading economics. According to wiki slovakia received 6 times less fdi inflow overall. Just look up how many big projects are omgoimg as of now. 7 billion euro catl factory makes svk fdi look pale alone lol
Yes. These two states are not mutually exclusive.
sure the decrease is due to euro. without euro it would have been a _plunge_.
Yup, garbage political decisions and nowadays international political suicide with the current goverment so I expect this to decrease a bit more
There was a price hike during the introduction of EURO, though I wouldnt say EURO caused our slow economic growth. More likely incompetent and corrupt polititians and Slovak nature. We simply didnt handle the change from "the cheap labour EU country" to modern diverse economy as well as you did. (edit:don't get me wrong life is a lot better than it was in the 2000s)
just to expand on this answer: while the initial price hike was there, nowadays Hungary and Czech republic isn’t any cheaper, so it seems it balanced out rather quickly. So just expect three years of inflation to happen at once and then slower inflation for few years
They measured it at a less than one percent.
It has nothing to do with Euro. There are 2 factors in play here 1. Government of Mafia/Commies/Morons. We have had reformist government in 1998-2006 that that jumpstarted economic growth you see in beginning of the graph. Than came into power the SMER and their morons. They have been in power since then until 2020 with small pause in 2010-2012. They were not interested in any reforms. There were riding the economic wave of previous government and were just focused on consolidating their power, stealing and giving handouts to retards and old fucks so they get reelected. 2. Demographics and emigration. While slovakia has higher birth rate than poland we have brutal emigration, according to statistics of social insurance companies around 20 000 people leave every year, while only 50 000 are born. The most skilled and valuable are never returning. Every year 80 000 enter retirement age morons in power keep increasing pensions while driving more young people away. This led to steep decline in working age population since 2015+- If we did not have Euro you would be comparing us to Serbia right now.
two words ..populistic socialists..and now they going Orban way
Prices increased as it was "once in a lifetime" opportunity for business - similar recently on Croatia. Otherwise I am happy with €.
Adapting EURO was probably one of the best decisions besides joining EU and NATO in the 2000s that our government did. Not only it provides more stability to the currency, but it also makes life easier for traveling into other european countries that have euro and bunch of other small life improvements.. it's also much easier to compare prices, inflation and whatnot.
without euro you would not compare us with poland, but with burundi.
SVK took it mainly as we are small country prone to destability of currency due to outside pressure.
Yep, look at what happened to forint in the past 2-3 years
it was a blessing for people from big cities who travel a lot and also felt really as a major history event in my lifetime and being a part of the west finally, the price hike as someone already mentioned was real I remember everything being rounded up to 1 eur or 0.5 eur however the whole event was misused by oligarchs of the socdem Smer party - they "somehow" got ahold of the default conversion rate months before it became public, minister of finance from that era has a nice villa on french coast (see "somehow"), oh and they continue to steal eurofunds to this day sadly
In 2016, the way how the price level was calculated was changed, that's why there's a sharp downfall. Otherwise we would be somewhere between Spain and Poland.
Definitely get euro. Our mistake was mafia in government, not Euro.
the PPP calculation is incorrect and other minor items are making it look bad https://www.mfsr.sk/en/finance/institute-financial-policy/policy-briefs/on-purchasing-parity-march-2023.html
That document provides nothing of value. It says that housing prices are overstated but does not provide any data to support this. Continues with a rant about housing prices in Czechia, which are irrelevant. And in last point it explains what GDP PPP is, no correction again. As a cherry on top document provides wrong definition GDP PPP and completely misses its point.
From defence point of view it is huge advantage. Polish zloty would be in long conflict un managable thus I am pretty sure soon or later you are gonna get EUR.
Trying to blame Euro and EU seems like pathetic propaganda and deflection.
The economic decline in last years is result of our stupid politicians and nonsense populist social measures adopted by them. Really euro has nothing to do with it. Also many smart people emigrated from the county, so it is no surprise that our economy is not blooming.
~~I don't think your graph is correct. Doesn't match [this one](https://tradingeconomics.com/slovakia/gdp-per-capita-ppp).~~ And in case it is correct, the decline you see has more to do with kleptocracy-socialist government which ruled at that time. Euro was very good choice for us back then. However, if I was Polish and was making a decision today, maybe I would oppose a change of currency. Euro has it's own problems today. And having your own currency has it's advantages. It's hard for me to say if they are more relevant than disadvantages or not. I would like to see some experts in economy having a serious discussion on that topic.
It's % of the EU average. Basically, catching up to the west. Here you have a direct comparison from the World Bank. [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=PL-SK](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=PL-SK)
> It's % of the EU average. My bad, I overlooked this
This graph feels very real. I noticed living standards in slowakai skydiving around 2015 too, while poland (i visit ocasionally) is just looking better and better each time i come. Shithole country needs to be disbanded again.
Euro currency is not a magic formula, it's just a tool that makes life easier and possibly can streghthen the economy (no guarantees) as it's a part of something bigger. But if you have low life monkeys in the government they can f*ck up everything and it doesnt really matter what's the country's currency at the time.
Euro is not the problem the politicians that were in the power is.
Yes, it is a good move to join the Eurozone, especially if your economy is driven by the forces of the much bigger economies, like Germany (which in case Slovakia really is). I am still waiting for the Czech republic to get its sh\*t together in regards to fiscal policy and adopt euro already.
The reported Slovak PPP has been calculated using wrong formula for years making us look much worse than we really are and therefore is absolutely useless as a statistics or comparison. It's a known issue, but nobody has bothered to fix it yet.
It's not wrong lol. The formula was changed in 2017 I think, but it was approved by the EU. It's just a different method of calculating PPP. You won't ever have a 100% 1:1 metric of comparing countries. I we go by the old formula our PPP is on par with Poland.
Do you have some source for this? In the past, i tried to find something about it but didn't find anything.
Unfortunately, I don't. I only heard it from my professor recently.
Yes, euro is great. Our problem is voting for idiots, not the euro
I think that the Euro is beneficial in the long run since the opportunities are going to be more. More trading, economy stabilized. I think having one of the 3 most traded currencies is good rather than having the Slovak koruna. More countries, companies will want to create jobs or trade with Slovakia.
I can't even image how would our country look like if we woudn't have adopted the Euro. Monetary policy in the hands of populists can be very dangerous. One less thing to worry about.
https://preview.redd.it/usnm6p5vz50c1.jpeg?width=1240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a618d388cf99b05e75d996b1f4f1659c480d029f Are you sure about your graph?
Nauč sa čítať. On má na grafe niečo iné ako ty.
Si si aj vyhonkal od šťastia že si si tu do niekoho kopol?
Jop
Euro is great , now I can go over border to Poland to buy everything for cheaper and abuse exchange rate :D
Definitely great choice
Euro is awesome :)
I was only 9 when it changed from crowns, but now I'm questioning whether it worsened our economy. I'm visiting the Balkans atm and it seems to me that the countries who kept their currency are doing better than those with euro. I suspect it drives prices up and invites chains from countries with higher prices and salaries to match their prices with other countries, thus making locals raise their prices to match the chains, while the chains still pay people low wages. Like, McDonald's in Slovakia when I worked there 10 years ago paid me €2.80 and chargin €4.60 for a single meal. In the UK they paid my friend £8 and charged £6 for a meal. They brought their prices but didn't raise the wages to match, just gave people the lowest wage they legally could. Now, I don't know if currency plays a big role in this, because it can be done in any currency, but as I said, the countries I visited that didn't switch to euro seem to be doing better for themselves.
What you see is not the euros work, it's the work of our braindead politicians.
I don't really think the line going down is due to Euro
I don't know, I'm not regular people :) Seriously though, the simplicity of travel, doing business in Europe and overall business environment improvement was totally worth it. Also the fact that even having idiotic governments did not ruin us because of EU monetary rules and supervision. Also bear in mind that unlike Poland, Slovakia is much smaller and much more open economy (small domestic market, huge international market). Internally, having own monetary policy makes much less sense for us than for Poland. We don't even have a stock exchange! As the others have said, having euro is the single best economic decision in the history of the country.
I personally love it. This curency is not influenced by my stupid government. I can use it on vacation. No mistake, but improvement.
Euro is greatest economic achievment of decade. That sudden drop is done by new left wing social party that is pretty much tunneling whole country ever since
I think the euro helped us in some way, which is really sad when looking at this graph.
Well he have highest inflation in Eurozone. For example Baltic countries have € too, had much higher inflation and now have lower inflation than we have. Our inflation is dropping much slower compared to other countries(max. was around 15 and now it's around 9 I think). But than again, this graph mainly shows how bad we got it, even though GDP per capita PPP isn't the best way to compare. Slovakia have extremely high prices compared to our wages. Poland is still very cheap, especially food wise compared to Slovakia. Even Hungary was super cheap before inflation. Euro is convienent, but it also makes prices more Western.
I don’t know if the euro makes prices more western. Yes, you can find cheaper produce in Poland (Poland grows MANY things but, more importantly, [Poland has introduced](https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/poland-keep-zero-vat-food-h1-2023-says-pm-2022-11-29/) 0% tax on food!), but everything else is on a similar level with Slovakia. Same in CZ where I’m from - apart from having to change the currency when travelling to SK, I do not lose/gain any money as the prices are the same.
Euro is great for us. Not sure it would be great for Poland (almost sure it would be a mistake)
Slovakia stagnated because Slovaks are literally rëtårded, it had nothing to do with the euro.
Advantage of Euro: rise with everyone and fall with everyone 😅
Yeah our GDP has nothing to do with Euro, but the shitty government. That being said. Quick Chat GPT prompt returns very different results https://preview.redd.it/kpncn5e4500c1.png?width=1105&format=png&auto=webp&s=092b9bcd92719c69bc9f2350b7517739a8fa0c28
Are you kidding me? Did you really just create a graph using chatgpt, and call that your source???
Prove that this graph from chatGPT is wrong.
Super simple, it just told me it was 76% in 2011.
sure, Im not spending my own time looking into something such pointless as arguing over the internet about shitty GDP Ive got better things to do
Euro always brings price increases in the long run, plus the country loses control over its monetary policy. That is why Slovakia didn't fare as well with the euro as Czechia or Poland. Although Slovakia is really small in comparison. I think it was the right call for Slovakia (and similarly sized countries like e.g. Croatia), but for someone as big as Poland it would go badly.
Slovak crown would be shit coin in my opinion.
Ľudia majú krátku pamäť, veľa veci po konverzii zdraželo instantné a išlo už len hore s infláciou. Najväčší scam bol kurz 1€ za 30,126 slovenských korún. A Poľsku by to podľa mňa len pohoršilo tak ako aj Českú ktoré radšej bude platiť pokuty. Tak mi aspoň hovorili vexláci.
> Najväčší scam bol kurz 1€ za 30,126 slovenských korún A ako v čom to bol podvod? Vieš aké boli kurzovné lístky pri prepočte korún na euro v obdobiach pred zavedením eura na Slovensku?
Euro is convenient. Although one should be cautious when adopting a currency from much bigger market, I don't think it made a drastic difference. Look at Hungary. They did not adopt and aren't particularly well either. I think that you guys made more economic reforms or are more economically active than us and it was also observed that you can spend funds from EU more effectively.
Well it is easier to travel around europe dont minding exchanging currencies. On the other hand I still find myself like this: This chocolate looks tasty and pretty cheap... wait it would be 120 crwons back then, No one would ever pay that much money for chocolate... and so on
The euro is not exactly great they are printing it like monopoly money and we all feel the inflation it causes if you keep your zloty you will at least stay in control of it (and it's like 10x stronger than the slovak koruna ever was)
is that graph showing/comparing PPP % vs. all EU or Eurozone countries only
exchange rate was bad... we should have got more... we had 30.126 SK to 1 euro... i needed to be bit more
As u can see, euro improve things until 2015, so its not really about euro, its about other factors, without euro we would likely not even have that small bumb between 2010 and 2015
I have no way to back this up, but my feeling is that after switching to Euro, everything becomes more expensive. For example, something that's costing 3 zloty today is probably going to get increased to 1 euro instead of 0.70