Today, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Slovenia received a leading expert on European monetary integration, who was a former member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank, Dr Otmar Issing, known as the father of the euro. Mr Issing congratulated the PM on Slovenia's meeting the Maastricht criteria and added that this was the pinnacle of all Slovenia's achievements in the economic field.

(Photo: Grega Wernig/Salomon 2000)

Dr Otmar Issing said he admired Slovenia's achievements and stressed that the introduction of the euro was a historic success. The PM and his guest agreed that the country must continue to comply with the Maastricht criteria and that after adopting the euro the Slovenian economy would operate in the most stable economic environment. Mr Issing believes that Slovenia had introduced appropriate measures against unfair price rises and added that in some countries rises which occurred due to other reasons were often unfairly attributed to the euro. He said it was very important that customers react to unfair practices by rejecting the products concerned.

The PM said that new generations of Slovenes were self-confident and believed in a bright future for Slovenia. Both agreed that the country was catching up with the average EU development level faster than other new member states and should continue to follow the same path.