Bratislava’s image problem jeopardizes its EU prospects

Date: 06/06/1996

OF the formerly Communist countries that emerged from the debris of the Cold War, the most puzzling is arguably Slovakia.

This smallish state of five million inhabitants is the only country north of the Balkans where political issues have come to dominate economic ones.

Like other Central Europeans, Slovaks largely share a desire to become part of western Europe's political structures.

But unlike any of their neighbours, Slovaks have twice elected a leadership which is actively putting its chances of rapid accession to the EU in serious jeopardy.

In the first two years of the new state's independence - which became effective in January 1993 - Slovakia was systematically mentioned as one of the countries penned for early Union membership.

Today, Slovak participation in the first round of enlargement is generally considered to be doubtful at best.

“If the present leadership stays in power and does not change its political approach, a positive opinion (on Slovakia's readiness to join the Union) will be very unlikely,” says one EU source.

The unfavourable image that Slovakia's ruling majority - a five-party coalition under Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar - has created in western public opinion can be traced back to three recurrent issues.

The most explosive one politically is undoubtedly the treatment of the country's minorities. Non-Slovaks total 14&percent; of the population, of whom ethnic Hungarians are the largest group and the one which attracts most foreign and European attention.

While Slovak officials insist that their Hungarian-speaking fellow citizens enjoy the same level of minority rights' protection guaranteed in other democratic countries, observers point to ethnic Hungarians' complaints that their cultural autonomy is insufficiently protected by the constitution and, more specifically, is threatened by a law making Slovakian the official national language.

And in late March, the internationally-welcomed ratification of a friendship treaty with neighbouring Hungary was seemingly secured as part of a package deal with the ruling coalition's ultra-nationalist Slovak National Party, which reportedly demanded the inclusion of highly-controversial amendments to the penal code as part of its price for agreeing to the accord.

These amendments, which make - amongst other things - defamation of Slovakia abroad a criminal offence punishable by several years in jail, caused a domestic outcry, marred the world's positive opinion of the treaty's ratification and prompted the Union to express its concern officially.

In what some see as a sign that Meciar is finally paying heed to foreign concerns, he has so far allowed the matter to rest and refrained from pushing the amendments any further through the parliamentary process.

But minority problems are a sensitive issue in many European countries, often charged with difficult historical memories, and are being viewed with a measure of understanding in most EU capitals.

“On the whole, I think, the Hungarians have made too much fuss,” says one Union official otherwise highly critical of the government.

Slovakia's other two big image problems, on the other hand, are purely government-induced.

Meciar, a former boxer, has been conducting a personal feud with the country's President Michal Kovac.

The conflict has become so intense that a number of observers have credited the government's secret services with kidnapping the president's son, dumping him in Austria and murdering a policeman involved in the subsequent investigation.

While the secret police's involvement in Meciar's fight against Kovac cannot be conclusively proven (or disproven), the government's attempts to destabilise and muzzle the opposition, pressurise the media into loyalty and deliver key businesses into the hands of political cronies are denied only by the staunchest of prime ministerial admirers.

“Meciar is an instinctively-authoritarian type, for whom sharing power is a sign of weakness,” says a Brussels-based official. “All of Slovakia's problems abroad lead back to him.”

Yet other observers reject an analysis which ascribes the dysfunctions of Slovakia's young democracy to the prime minister's distaste for dissent alone.

The reasons for Slovakia's flawed style of politics, they say, lie deep in the country's past.

For centuries following the Hungarian conquest in the 10th century, Slovakia has been under foreign domination, with Slovaks rising into the establishment by adopting Hungarian names and the Hungarian language in order to merge with the ruling Magyar aristocracy.

This cultural oppression continued well into the 19th century. In the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian empire, rural Slovakia was an impoverished backwater, its capital Bratislava outshone by thriving Budapest and Vienna.

The creation of the state of Czechoslovakia in 1919 initially did little to boost Slovakian pride. The dazzling Czech capital, Prague, easily outshone the backwards eastern half of the country, with Slovak intellectuals, artists and politicians often perceived as Czechs by western Europeans, and thousands of poor citizens emigrating to western Europe and the US.

As in Croatia, the Germans set up a puppet regime in Slovakia during World War II, giving birth to a short-lived, nominally-independent state which an influential fringe of Slovak public opinion still regards as the first example of modern statehood in their country.

The post-war era, while firmly welding Slovakia back to its more prosperous and advanced sister republic, brought Slovaks the mixed benefits of forced industrialisation. This was accompanied by a sharp rise in living standards, the memory of which still lingers.

As in other formerly underdeveloped countries, the decades of state-engineered growth and economic planning are looked upon more favourably in Slovakia than, for instance, in the Czech Republic, which even during the Communist decades held on to its memories of a rich capitalist past.

And as in other countries with a similar history, the absence of a traditional social élite defending and handing down sophisticated national cultural and political values, and a background of centuries of poverty and foreign oppression, have apparently left Slovakia with a somewhat resentful and clumsily assertive style of nationalism, which easily translates into conspiracy-style theories about other countries' animosity.

“When you talk to Slovak officials, you will often find a kind of national minority complex. In that respect, they are very different from the Czechs,” says one EU official who regularly deals with Slovakians.

The partial failure of Slovakia's government to conform to the democratic standards and political style expected of future EU members is made all the more striking by the fact that in all other respects, Slovakia's suitability as a candidate for early membership of the Union is not in doubt.

Not only would its location as a wedge between Hungary and Poland make it inconvenient to leave Slovakia out, but

the country's economic performance has exceeded many expectations. Economic growth in 1995 surpassed 6.0&percent; of GDP, while inflation has been contained at a comparatively modest 7.2&percent;.

Even in the economic field, however, observers have detected signs of worrying political intrusion. A voucher scheme for mass privatisation was abruptly halted last year, with buyers being suddenly told they would receive bonds instead.

The firms involved are now being sold to buyers often recruited from the ranks of the former management. “This means that little will change in the way businesses are run and restructuring will be further delayed,” says an EU official.

Critics also suspect that modified privatisation is a ploy to enable the government to sell the companies to friends and supporters, giving loyal allies control of large sectors of the economy.

“It all fits in with Meciar's attempt to control as much of society as he can,” says one. “Meciar is somebody who comes from the past.”

But even Slovaks privately critical of Meciar's policies and keen on their country's integration into the EU argue that Slovakia receives an unfair share of criticism.

“Right from the beginning, we could not do anything right,” says one Brussels-based Slovak. “It started with the West resenting that we decided to become independent.”

The danger, they say, is that continued criticism will encourage those in Slovakia who perceive the West as perpetually hostile, and push the country to look for better friends east of its borders.