Almost 20 years of EU membership had deep and overwhelmingly positive effects on the Slovak economy. In this Policy Brief we are looking at three of the main channels through which EU membership impacts the Slovak economy. First, we are looking at net direct payments from the EU. Second, we are looking at the impact of EU membership on the costs of financing Slovakia’s public debt and third, we are looking at the impact of EU membership on Slovak trade and the value added created in Slovakia because of its deep integration in European trade flows. Overall, we find strongly positive effects for all three channels.

We are not analysing separately the impact of Slovakia’s accession to the euro area. It is realistic to assume, however, that the adoption of the euro yielded additional benefits as regards two of the channels that we are looking at, namely the costs of financing Slovakia’s public debt and its integration into European trade flows. From an institutional perspective, it is also worth recalling that adoption of euro is not possible without membership in the EU.