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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Eurozone: Slovenia is invited to join inSlovenia got invitation to enter the Eurozone, a restricted club within the European Union (EU) reserved for countries showing excellent financial macro results. Lithuania, another frontline applicant, will so far have to wait until it improves its financial performance, especially in terms of inflation. Slovenia is the first ever post-communist country to have been invited to join the Eurozone. What's the prize associated with this membership? It will include cheaper loans, better protection for investors, and perhaps more money from the EU. New EU members like the idea to be anytime soon members of the restricted Eurozone club. This will give some additional positive political appraisal for their elites, something especially in need for governments still full with former communists. But the reason to ask for fast-track membership into the Eurozone isn't just symbolic, although this symbolic element isn't negligible. There are other reasons that make new EU members asking loudly for introducing the Euro, and all of them have important financial dimensions.
Cheaper loansThe Euro is one of the major world currencies, along with the U.S. dollar, and to lesser extent the Japanese, British, and the Swiss currencies. No post-communist financial system will ever be so solid as to trade currencies as stable and as appealing as these major legal tenders. Money stability leads to better credit ratings, and they lead to lower premiums on the loans in the inter-bank money exchange. It may sound trivial, but adopting the Euro will lead to lower interests and higher economic growth, and thus all post-communist countries are looking for means to shortcut the road toward the Eurozone. Slovenia will join it by January 2007. Lithuania will have to wait because of its higher inflation. The core Eurozone countries are so far reluctant in allowing other new members. Their rational goes in the opposite direction. For Germany or France the new members with higher rates of economic growth will push up the interest rates, making more difficult their own economic recovery.
Better protection for investorsJoining the Eurozone leads to better protection of the foreign investors. The local governments lose one of their main tools of manipulating the markets, the sovereign power to print money. What costs one Euro within the Eurozone today may cost more or less one Euro some time from now, unless the European Central Bank decides suddenly to manipulate the markets, but even then there will be no unpleasant surprises for those investors coming from other Eurozone countries. One Euro in Germany will look exactly like one Euro in Slovenia. Especially when countries trade enormous quantities of goods across their common border, it becomes more than necessary to have either some common currency mechanisms or to apply a common currency. After decades unlucky experiencing with the former, the EU decided to apply the latter.
Hoping for more money from the EUAdopting the Euro, or rather being invited to adopt the Euro, leads to one more important element in the post-communist EU members' strategies. The financial criteria to be eligible for the Eurozone look surprisingly similar, but it isn't identical, to the criteria necessary in order to receive cohesive funds from the EU. Which means that if the EU decides that a particular country isn't well prepared to join the Eurozone this country may not be a good jump from been eliminated in receiving billions of Euros as grants for its infrastructure. The core EU countries are desperately looking for pretexts in order to cut their financial aid to the post-communist EU members. A good and well measurable excuse will be to show that they don't meet the financial criteria set for the Eurozone membership. Slovenia has successfully passed this test.
Slovenia country profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Slovenia.
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