At its regular Wednesday’s meeting the cabinet approved an informative report on progress of Slovakia’s integration into the system of fiscal control and coordination of the economic policies of the EU countries. According to the material, the countries accessing to the European Union will have to submit their updated pre-entry economic programs by August 15 of the current year. In early September these programs will be forwarded to EU member countries and other candidate countries. In October, the European Commission will publish an evaluation of the pre-entry economic programs, and on October 24, a top-level meeting will be held in Brussels, where the pre-entry programs will be discussed.

The ministerial council of the European Union for economic and financial affairs will meet on November 4, 2003 to discuss the pre-entry programs. In October, 2003 the accessing countries will also have to submit for the first time the so called „Cardiff Reports“ on structural reforms on the product, labor and capital markets. This will enable the accessing countries to participate fully in the reporting on the implementation of the structural reforms in 2004. The “ Cardiff Report“ will have two main parts, the first devoting to the product market and the second to the capital market. According to the report by the Finance Ministry, from March 2004 the accessing countries will have to submit twice a year a report on the fiscal deficit and deficit of public finances in accordance with the ESA 95 methodology.

The new EU member countries also will have to submit by May 15, 2004 their first convergence programs which will be focused on the impact of structural reforms on the medium-term economic plans, examine sustainability of public finances, and long-term maintenance of convergence programs.

Within the pre-entry procedure of integration into the fiscal auditing system of the EU, Slovakia, similarly to other candidate countries, has joined already in 2001 the preparation of annual reports on its fiscal deficit and public debts as well as of pre-entry economic programs. After it signed the accession agreement with the EU in April 2003, preparations of Slovakia in these fields are beginning to intensify.