Ekonomické efekty integrácie Slovenskej republiky do Európskej únie
ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF THE INTEGRATION OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC INTO THE EUROPEAN UNION

Summary/Abstract: Problems of economic and social consequence of the EU extension towards the East gained an importance recently not only from the EU point of view, but also, and above all from the point of view of candidate countries. The interest of candidate countries to know the consequences of integration stems from the natural need to identify the so-called integration assets for the purpose of the strategy of government’s economic poli-cy. There is also the public pressure to get information to generate rational expectations of citizens for the decision in future referendum on the EU entry. Naturally, the sense of integration of candidate countries into the EU lies in the expected real and economic convergence towards the EU. One can therefore ask the theoretical question whether Slovakia, which shows still relatively large setback in the economic level and economy competitiveness behind that of the EU average, should enter the EU in the assumed date in the year 2004. Would it not be better to enter later when the country reaches a certain level of economy’s accomplishments? Based on the results of the Study on Economic and Social Connections of the Slovakia’s Entry into the EU prepared by the Institute of Slovak and World Economics SAS in Bratislava the author proves that generally positive effects can be achieved already at the entry in the year 2004. Just on the contrary it appears that the EU entry can just accelerate the process of real economic and social convergence towards the EU. This conclusion is based on the analysis of possible relevant effects of Slovakia’s integration into the EU. One has in mind above all the integration effects in the narrower sense, budget effects, and areas of implementation costs relating to the EU standards and effects of the overall economic and social convergence. Within the framework of integration effects in the narrower sense, one has to con-sider in the first place Slovakia’s integration into the EU customs union. This should be smooth and total abolition of remaining custom barriers should create slightly wider space mainly for the Slovak exports into the unified EU market. In spite of certain changes in the list of countries and commodities, which should Slovakia reflect in its commercial policy, the acceptance of the common custom tariffs and preferential re-gimes should not significantly influence Slovak foreign trade parameters. Taking over non-tariff measures however could increase the protection of domestic market, at the same time, however increase technical requirements for exports into the EU.

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