Slovakia
Slovakia adopted the Euro currency on 1 January 2009 as the 16th member of the Eurozone. The euro in Slovakia was approved by the European commission on 7 May 2008. The Slovak koruna was revalued on 28 May 2008 to 30.126 for 1 euro, which was also the exchange rate for the euro.
Slovakia is an attractive country for foreign investors mainly because of its low wages, low tax rates and well educated labour force. In recent years, Slovakia has been pursuing a policy of encouraging foreign investment. FDI inflow grew more than 600% from 2000 and cumulatively reached an all-time high of $17.3 billion in 2006, or around $22,000 per capita by the end of 2008.
Hungarians in Slovakia
On 1 September 2009 more than ten thousand Hungarians held demonstrations to protest the so-called language law that limits the use of minority languages in Slovakia. The law calls for fines of up to £4,380 for institutions "misusing the Slovak language". There were demonstrations in Dunajská Streda (), Slovakia, in Budapest, Hungary and in Brussels, Belgium.Some 585 schools in Slovakia, including kindergartens, use the Hungarian language as the main language of education. Nearly 200 schools use both Slovak and Hungarian. In 2004, the J. Selye University of Komárno was the first state-financed Hungarian-language university to be opened outside of Hungary.Note: only towns in Slovakia are listed here, villages and rural municipalities are not.