(BRATISLAVA) - Priests and actors have been recruited to get the euro message across in Slovakia as the country's preparations for eurozone membership get ready to move up a gear when the koruna's conversion rate is fixed by European finance ministers on Tuesday.

The move will act as the starting gun for the launch of most of the government campaign explaining the euro switch to a still sceptical population. Side by side with slick TV spots and euro conversion calculators sent to every household, Catholic priests and a travelling Roma theatre group are part of the push to inform the population of the post-communist Central European country about becoming the eurozone's 16th member from January 1, 2009.

The Slovak National Bank hit upon getting the Catholic Church on board for the euro as far back as 2005, when the country's single currency crusade was decided.

"Priests are in some outlying districts the person that people most often turn to when they have some civic problems," national bank spokeswoman Jana Kovacova told AFP. Around 70 percent of Slovaks describe themselves as Roman Catholics.

While an an economic boom fueled by foreign investment has made the capital Bratislava and west of the country appear like neighbouring eurozone Austria, parts of the east, and the Roma ghettos that dot the countryside, look half a world away.

God's earthly interpreters have been given the euro message in a series of 90-minute tutorials taking in the currency's advantages and key steps along the way to the promised euroland by the main money changer, the national bank. "Such people need to have information about such a significant change if they are to know how to react to questions from believers," Kovacova added.

So far, demand for advice about the big money changeover has been muted if Bratislava-based priest Augustin Slaninka is anything to go by. "I have not had that many questions so far, but certainly the questions will come," the 52-year-old, who sees the euro as part of the country's European integration process, told AFP.

Slaninka sees the elderly as his main concern. "Old people have fears...They are afraid that everything will be a lot more expensive," he explained.

Slovakia's sole state-funded Roma theatre group, Romathan, is in the forefront of explaining the euro to around half of the country's estimated 320,000 Roma minority living in isolated ghettos, mostly in the east and centre of the country.

Starting July 13, the theatre, based in Slovakia's second city Kosice, will tour around 40 isolated settlements playing out a one-hour scenario, in the Roma language and Slovak, with the euro as the main star. Practicalities of the euro's introduction will be explained in ordinary household situations, for instance how it should be converted from the koruna and how the small euro coins will be worth a lot more than those currently in circulation, the national bank said.

Finance Minister Jan Pociatek has also been getting into the euro act, appearing as a biker in a popular Slovak commercial TV serial at the end of June to spout some reassuring lines that the single currency will not lead to price rises. More appearances by the 37-year-old motorbike enthusiast minister are promised by the broadcaster.

His soothing words are aimed at a public divided about the currency switch. A poll for the national statistics office in June showed 34 percent against euro adoption and 35 percent for with 30 percent indifferent and one percent saying they did not know.

Scare stories about jail sentences for euro conversion profiteers have flooded the Slovak media, but sometimes been wide of the mark. The justice ministry is preparing changes which would make unjustified price rises connected with the conversion to the euro a criminal offence punishable by up to four years in jail.

"This applies to unjustified profiteering from the conversion of the koruna to the euro but only to prices and services which are currently regulated, such as electricity, water, gas and for example, lawyers' services. It does not affect the free market, or if, for example I go to the supermarket and buy some milk," ministry spokesman Michal Jurci told AFP.

But the government has pledged to keep a hawkish eye on price developments after goods are labelled in euros and koruna from August and has recruited consumer organisations and other associations to help highlight abuse.

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