This website was active from February 2006 until June 2007.

Convergence criteria

For an EU member state to be able to introduce the euro, it must fulfil certain requirements: the convergence (or Maastricht) criteria defined in Article 121(1) of the Treaty establishing the European Community and in the Protocol on Convergence Criteria cited in Article 121 of the Treaty. The convergence criteria are related to the achievement of:

a low inflation rate,
sound public finances,
low interest rates,
stable exchange rates.

Convergence criteria are divided into economic and legal criteria.

For individual member states, the convergence criteria and their fulfilment are assessed on a monthly basis. The table below shows the updated convergence criteria with calculations for the euro area (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain) and for Slovenia:

	Inflation in the last 12 months^* (%)	Long-term interest rate in the last 12 months^* (%)	General government deficit in 2004 (% of GDP)	Public debt in 2004 (% of GDP)
The euro area	2.2	3.40^**	-2.7	70.8
Convergence criterion	2.6	5.32	-3.0	60.0
Slovenia	2.4	3.78	-2.1	29.8

Remarks:
* Last 12 months refers to the average of the data up to and including January 2006.
** Data refers to previous month.

Latest figures for Slovenia

Inflation (in %)
March 2006	2,3
May 2006	2,6
Interest rates (in %)
March 2006	3,8
May 2006	5,9
General government Deficit (in % GDP)
2005	- 1,8
2006	- 3,0
Public deficit (in % BDP)
2005	29,1
2006	60,0

Slovenia fulfils also the criteria of stable exchange rate: for more than 20 months in ERM II , the exchange rate stabilised around the central parity rate, the biggest day variation was 0,17 % /allowed +/- 2,25%).

With adoption of the recent changes in the Law on Bank of Slovenia, Slovenia fulfils also the legal criteria.