The easy answer is, “yes, you can.” If you were looking for it, you could move further in your internet surfing. However, this article is for people who are willing to improve themselves and expand their knowledge on a wider range. So, we will mention all the peculiarities of the Slovenian currency here. If you are interested in Slovenia and everything connected with this country, welcome on board!
Of course, you can pay in Euros here. Slovenia has a long path of becoming a EU member as well as a part of the Schengen area. However, now it’s the visa-free country with Euro as the main currency.
Slovenia experienced the political change, the Yugoslav crisis, and the long history of gaining independence a lot of time before. This was because of the incredible will of the Slovenian people as well as because of the wise political elite. Therefore, let’s find out how it became possible that Slovenia adopted Euro so fast after its disuniting from Yugoslavia.
Surfing on the internet, there is a common frequent question “if I travel from (EU member state) into (EU member state), can I pay in Euro?”
First of all, it’s better to remember that the only countries where there are not the Euro currency still are Sweden, Denmark, Czech Republic, Poland, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. If to take into consideration Schengen area countries, add to this list Switzerland and Norway.
Therefore, in order to remember easily, we have Scandinavians, we have Balkans, and we have Central European Slavic nations. Easy to remember? Isn’t it?
At all the other European Union territories, Euro is the main currency. Hence, the euro coins and banknotes you use in your own country will be able to spend in all the other mentioned above countries. The only difference between them is in the backsides of coins. Every country has its own designs. On the other hand, banknotes are the same everywhere.
By the way, some people are serious collectors of such coins and tend to gather all the variations. The great idea for the start-up, so we give it to you for free!
Moreover, outside the European Union, you can use Euro in Montenegro, Kosovo, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Vatican City, Monaco, and Andorra.
Slovenian Variations of Euro
Here, we propose to depict all the Slovenian euro coins. The €0.01 coin has an image of stork taken from 0.20 tolar coin. At the coin, €0.05, there are Ivan Grohar’s painting The Sower sowing stars. He was a well-known Slovenian impressionist.
Jože Plečnik’s proposed an idea to depict the national parliament on €0.10. On €0.20, there is a pair of Lipizzaner horses with the inscription. Triglav, the main symbol of Slovenia, is imaged on €0.50. The one Euro coin shows Primož Trubar, Slovenian Protestant reformer on itself.
The two Euros coins are the place for France Prešeren, Slovenian Romantic poet, and the first line of the 7th stanza of Zdravljica (Slovenian national anthem, written by him, by the way). And last but not least, there is the name of the country on the two Euros coin. S L O V E N I J A.
Tolar
The previous currency was called tolar. It was the only currency in Slovenia since 8 October 1991 until the introduction of the Euro on 1 January 2007. By rules, one tolar was divided into 100 stotinov (cents). The first acronym was SLT, but after June 1992, it was changed to SIT.
Tolar replaced Yugoslav dinar in 1990. The last one was being used all around the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Cents, or stotins were nominated in 10, 20, and 50 stotinov. In their turn, big nominations coins had nominations such nominations as 1 tolar, 2 tolarja and 5 tolarjev (2 and 5 tolars). Further, 10 tolarjev (10 tolars) coins were introduced in 2000, followed by 20 and 50 tolarjev (20 and 50 tolars) in 2003. Their design was created by Miljenko Licul and Zvone Kosovelj and featured reliefs of animals by Janez Boljka.
Banknotes had nominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000, and 5000 tolarjev. An interesting fact, that 0.50 and 2000 tolarjev notes were also printed, but never issued. They all featured Triglav, the tallest mountain in Slovenia, on the front. This mountain is also imaged on the coat of arms of the country as well as on its flag.
Adoption
First of all, Slovenia became the first country of the 2004 European Union enlargement to adopt the Euro currency. It was because of strong political powers leading to full integration into European Union.
Thus, in 2006, Slovenia adopted the currency. So, on January the 1st, all the Slovenian could go out from their homes and buy a New Year coffee and lunch with the new currency.
A tolar, the previous Slovenian currency, was able to use 14 days from that date. The government decided to do the change period short because of previous negative experiences. That period was called the dual circulation period.
On that very day, Slovenians were able to withdraw the Euro banknotes from any ATM.
Frankly speaking, Slovenia was getting prepared for the adoption of the Euro from the day of gaining independence. So, the government started adjusting the economy to a further switch. Therefore, the situation was quite stable at that time. In 2006, Slovenia has a rate of economic growth of 4.8%. The inflation rate was only 2.5%., the national debt was 28%, and the unemployment rate was 6.1%. What was really impressive, the GDP per capita was estimated at 82% of the EU average. Moreover, this fact double impressive if to take into consideration that at that time, all the countries were highly developed. The only two countries outsiders were Portugal and Greece.
Political Path to Adoption
After gaining independence, Slovenia takes a direction into the European Union and NATO (Transatlantic Military Union). Those priorities were taken during the evolution of parties too. In 1992, after a successful campaign, DEMOS divided into parties again. The major one was the Liberal Democrats of Slovenia (LDS). It was the leading party and ruled Slovenia for almost 12 years. LDS was gathering enough votes to form governments in 1996 and 2000 as well. Another party in the ruling coalition was The Social Democratic (SD). The magnet for the electorate of the party was its president Borut Pahor, who was the Prime Minister of Slovenia from November 2008 to February 2012, and now he is the 4th President of Slovenia.
In 2000, Pahor led his party in the coalition with the first one mentioned about the Liberal Democracy of Slovenia led by Janez Drnovšek, who was the Prime Minister for almost 10 years already. Thereby, the Slovenian national agenda shifted to a centrist approach. However, the right-wing consolidated power by way of two parties: Slovene People’s Party (SLS) and Slovene Christian Democrats (SKD).
Exactly theses political powers led Slovenia to the pro-European policy and therefore entering the union, adopting the Euro currency and becoming a part of the Schengen area.
Overview
The adoption of the Euro had a lot of benefits on the political and social life of Slovenia. First of all, every tourist from most of the European Union countries can pay in Euro. This fact makes traveling easier and safer for all people. Moreover, this factor influences the people of Slovenia as well. They also can go outside the country and pay by their currency, not changing it.
Furthermore, Euro is quite a stable currency. There is no possible situation for it to convert into nothing in several hours that happened with many currencies throughout history. Euro is on the same level as American Dollar and Sterling Pound.
Euro is a part of the European mentality. Europe is the place of uniting, democracy, and tolerance. Living without borders and without limitations is what makes the European man. Slovenians, as well as other nations of this region, can travel fluently, live wherever they want, and work in any country. This gives a wide range of possibilities in self-development and searching for the perfect place for living.
Now, Slovenians are happy to have such the country. Of course, it is not without flaws, but it is much better than some others. And Euro plays a significant role in this.
Moreover, Slovenia is the country on the crossroad of the worlds: Central European and the Balkans. This makes Slovenian business to grow and Slovenian people to learn from all the neighbors, therefore from positive examples as well as from some negative ones.
Euro was the real deal when deciding the political course of the country. At first, elites united against socialism, and after that, they did it the second time for the sake of the prosperous future. Because of them, Slovenians now can go to Austria or Italy without any border control, and buy their local coffee and without any currency exchange. Because of the political right course, they can work in those countries as well as the citizens of those countries can do this in Slovenia.
So, all the mentioned above is not a reason for luckiness, but the result of hard work.
