Konvertibilita a devízový kurz slovenskej koruny vo vzťahu k Európskej únii
KONVERTIBILITY AND CURRENCY EXCHANGE RATE OF THE SLOVAK CROWN IN RELATION TOWARDS THE EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: The paper consists of the three parts. The first one is addressed to the problems of the EU preparedness to its extension and to the admission of associated countries. It points out at the acceleration of the process and at the requirements of the EU in the sphere of currency exchange rates and convertibility of the candidate countries’ currencies. The second part reflects the preparedness of the Slovak Republic to enter the EU in the sphere of currency policy and the system of currency exchange rate in the context of the EU requirements and possible standards of the IMF. The degree of preparedness of the Slovak Republic to enter the EU will be influ-enced above all by the three basic factors, namely by the economic level, inflation rate and state of external economic unbalance. All the listed factors are strongly influenced by the monetary and currency policy of the National Bank of the Slovakia (NBS). NBS went over to the new strategy of currency policy – the Bank abandoned the system of fixed currency exchange rate with a defined oscillation range as an anchor of the mone-tary policy and introduced controlled floating and implicitly defined inflation aim. NBS monetary policy is currently in numerous publications incorrectly characterised as infla-tion aiming. This is a result of the inadequately specified aim of the current monetary policy of the NBS, which is a certain „hybrid“, consisting of the information on the short-term inflation prediction by NBS (though not as an aim) and influencing the ex-change rate environment. Higher accentuation of the inflation rate by the NBS, above all the emphasis on the core inflation can be explained by the efforts to achieve main long- -term aim of the monetary policy, e.g. stable currency. One also respects the new phenomenon of the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the level of inflation in the EMU countries. The selection of the appropriate exchange rate system is an important part of the choice of the NBS monetary policy. The important condition of the entry of the Slovak Republic into the EU is also an ex-ternal monetary balance along with the wide external convertibility of the Slovak Crown and relatively stable currency exchange rate. External unbalance could provoke fears of possible devaluation, the growth of foreign indebtedness and at the moment of EU admission the inability to accede also the exchange rate mechanism – Exchange Rate Me-chanism II - and observe its rules, however voluntary the entry into this system might be.

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