Own goal for Slovakia

To know where the euro was going this week, you had to understand the subtleties of Slovak politics.

On 11 October, the parliament in Bratislava refused to ratify plans to expand the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), when the opposition social-democratic party (Smer) abstained, allowing the liberals of the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS) to bring down Iveta Radičová’s coalition government, which included their own party. On 13 October, the same parliament approved the reinforced EFSF with support of Smer MPs, who had, in the meantime, agreed to support the measure in exchange for early general elections.

In the debates and negotiations on the issue, Slovakia’s political elite showed its inability to see that their country’s real interests were best served by a European context. In so doing, it demonstrated the narrow minded mentality of a small country, whose only means to attracting attention to itself on the European stage is the instrumentalisation of legitimate questions — the utlity of Eurozone bailout mechanisms — for short-term political gains.

Although EU leaders called on Bratislava to hold a second vote on the EFSF, the response in Brussels cannot be described as an anti-democratic bid to force the hand of a national parliament, as it was when the Irish were obliged to organise a second referendum on the Lisbon treaty in 2009. However, Brussels has had a major impact on national politics, because the second vote has presented Smer leader Robert Fico, who was Slovakia’s prime minister from 2006 to 2010, with a major opportunity.

Fico has already shown he is a force to be reckoned with through his creation of alliances Ján Slota’s extreme-right SNS and Vladimír Mečiar’s populists. In the course of a mandate, in which Slovakia became more nationalist and inward-looking, that served to raise ethnic tensions in the region, Fico prioritised the development of closer ties with Russian and Serbia over better relations with the EU. So if he suceeds in winning the early general elections that have now been slated for next March, the EU will have contributed, albeit inadvertently, to the undermining of democracy in Slovakia in the years to come.

However, the man who must assume most of the blame for this situation is Richard Sulík, whose SaS party opposed the measure on the first vote. The president of parliament and liberal leader is more concerned about the future of his children, who would be plunged into debt if Slovakia had to pay for Greece. There is no denying the substance of this argument in the Eurozone’s poorest country, which had to take charge of its economic transition after the fall of communism. But in putting forward this view, Sulík failed to take into account the extent to which his country is now linked to the European economy, and the fact that Slovakia will run much greater risks if it continues to act like a selfish loner far away beyond the Tatras.

The EFSF triggered the fall of the government led by Iveta Radičová — a politician who understands the importance of belonging to the Eurozone and the need for solidarity, but lacks the clout to ensure support for these policies. At the end of the day, Slovakia approved the measures to strengthen the EFSF, but the manner in which it did so came at a high cost. The vote was not only a failure for Radičová’s government, but for the entire country of Slovakia.