Dissolution of Czechoslovakia
On 1 January 2009 Slovakia adopted the Euro as its currency with the exchange rate of 30.126 SK/€, and the €2 commemorative coin for 2009, Slovakia's first, featured the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution in remembrance of the common struggle of the Czechoslovak people for democracy. By a quirk of fate, the welcoming speech on the behalf of the European Union on the occasion of Slovakia's entry to the Eurozone was delivered by Mirek Topolánek, the prime minister of the then-EU presiding country, the Czech Republic, naturally in his native language while other guest speakers used English. The Czech Republic continues to use the Czech koruna, or crown.
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.