In connection with the EU extension by the countries of Central and Eastern Europe one stresses in the preparatory period rather the take-over and implementation of the EU legislation. This seems to be preferred to the economic performance, and above all, to the real ability of candidate countries to meet the competitive pressure within the EU. as Copenhagen criteria of EU membership define. Just this real convergence of the main parameters of economy with the average level of such parameters in the EU reflects; the ability of relevant country to adjust to the competing pressure in the EU and after all, how profitable will be the integration effects for country's population. Based on discussions and controversies at various world platforms and international conferences the author explores real convergence of parameters relevant for the process of integration and accepts as an object for this exploration competitiveness criterion of the economy. At the same time, the author starts out of the premise that monitoring and analysis of competitiveness arc justified not. only at the enterprise level, but also at the level of the economy as a whole. In this paper, the author characterises one of the additional (beside the so-called multi-criteria evaluation method) approaches towards the evaluation of the competitiveness of the economy. He applies this approach at the analysis of the level of Slovak economy competitiveness. This analysis has been implemented just before the expected Slovak entry into the EU. Author's aim is to identify Slovakia's lagging behind the EU average, comparing its competitiveness also with other candidate countries from Central Europe. This approach consists in relatively complex characteristics of competitive ability of the economy by macro-economic indicators and indicators adequate to the lower aggregate (commodity - branch) level and seeking the links and connections between these levels. By means of this approach it is possible to get an overview on the structuring of the process of competitiveness increase, which is important for the formulation of economic policy. At the same time this approach means the transfer of the foreign trade understanding of competitiveness towards the apprehension observing above all the links with the overall performance of the economy, which agrees with new theories of the international trade and economic growth. Apart from the GDP share (in purchasing power parity - PPP) per capita there are within the framework of macro-economic indicators also other important and explanatory competitiveness indicators. These are comparable summary labour productivity expressed by PPP, currency exchange rate deviation, comparable price level and also labour productivity expressed by GDP in current prices recalculated in nominal exchange rate per worker (the so called rated productivity). And just the rated productivity is in candidate countries considerably diverse and strongly correlated with the indicators that characterise qualitative competitiveness. The analysis of these indicators demonstrated that competitiveness of the Slovak economy in relatively complex concept and from the qualitative point of view has shown in hither-to, transformation period certain improvement. Lagging behind the EU average, however, still remains considerable, and its position compared to some other candidate Central European countries, above all, Slovenia, Czech Republic and Hungary generally worse. The analysis demonstrated further, that the main accent at increasing. competitiveness of the Slovak economy should be aimed at productivity growth based on the technology modernisation, product differentiation and, innovation, and in- branch co-operation mainly at such production segments that demand research and are labour intensive. Such strategy orientation has a chance at the Slovak entry into the European Union.
