The Slovak euro coins are the European monetary union euro coins issued by Slovakia since 2009. They feature three separate designs for the three series of coins. Slovakia has been a member of the European Union since May 2004, and is a member of the European Economic and Monetary Union. Slovakia adopted the euro on 1 January 2009, replacing its previous currency, the Slovak koruna. Adopting the euro In 2005, an official public contest for Slovak euro coin designs was held, which took place over two rounds. The deadline for the first round was 31 January 2005, after which the ten top designers chosen by the National Bank of Slovakia (NBS) were invited to make plaster reliefs of their designs. In the second round, the NBS called a public vote conducted from 12 November until 20 November 2005 on the ten designs that were picked from the over 200 submissions. On 21 November 2005, the results were made public; the most popular design was the coat of arms of Slovakia. On 20 December 2005, the design for the Slovak euro coins was officially made public on the NBS website. Since then Slovakia has been doing economic reforms to be able to adopt the euro. After three years of reforms, on 1 April 2008, the NBS announced their plan for withdrawal, disposal and destruction of the Slovak koruna notes and coins. On 7 May 2008, the European Commission approved the application and asked member states to endorse the bid during the EU finance minister's meeting in July 2008. Slovakia's 12-month inflation was 2.2% compared with 3.2% that is required. Annual inflation however was 3.6% for March 2008. Fiscal deficit was 2.2% versus the reference value of 3.0%. And finally the government debt ratio was 29.4% of GDP in 2007, well below the maximum ratio of 60.0%. On 3 June 2008, the European Union finance ministers gave Slovakia the green light to join the euro zone in 2009 while urging the country to be ready to fight inflation with tight fiscal policies. "We are happy to see Slovakia join the euro zone on January 1, 2009," Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of euro zone finance ministers, told reporters. Slovakia's mint has been tasked to produce some 500 million euro and cent coins. As a preparation for the change on 1 January, starting from November 2008, these coins will be distributed to