From May 1st this year, that means in 85 days, Slovakia will be a full member of the European Union . It will be nearly 14 years after fall of communism in our country and Slovakia is ready for entry in EU. Now when we are almost here, there will be a huge demand for information about what our access to the EU will mean for business and for people of our country.

Before our access there was a long way, long process. The accession negotiations with Slovakia were successfully concluded on 13. December 2002 and Treaty of Accession was signed on 16 April 2003. In a referendum held on 16 - 17 May 2003, a majority of Slovaks expressed their support for membership of European Union. Following ratification of the Treaty of Accession , Slovakia will join the EU on 1 May 2004.

Commission EU for enlargement was monitoring situation in Slovakia. Acceding countries need to implement the acquis by the date of accession, except in cases where transitional arrangement have been agreed. The Regular Report point to a number of areas, where further improvement need to be made in the context of the political and economic criteria and in relationship to the adoption , implementation and enforcement of the acquis. Monitoring was made for example about these areas:
Administrative and judicial capacity, anticorruption measures, free movement of goods, persons, freedom to provide services, free movement of capital, company law, competition policy, taxation, economic and monetary union, statistics, social policy and employment, education and training, environment, consumer and health protection, common foreign and security policy, finance control.

XXX A1 Corruption

A last issue concerns the fight against crime and corruption. Slovakia has achieved substantial progress by the adoption by the Government of a program in this area and by the transposition of international obligations. This should be followed now by real implementation on the ground that should lead to visible positive results in the short term.