Pragmatism and support for the EU in Slovakia’s politics

ABSTRACT

In 2017, the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, declared that he wanted to steer Slovakia into the core of European integration. Although Fico always supported European integration, he often came across as critical of the EU. This article tests various scenarios of preceding developments and finds the reasons that led to Fico's politicisation of Slovakia's European course. It argues that a large measure of pragmatism, combined with a weak ideological grounding, characterise Slovakia's European policy. As such, European policy is devoid of strong ideological roots or any elaborate long-term strategy, and serves pragmatic needs of the government currently in power.

KEYWORDS:

• European policy of Slovakia
• Euroscepticism
• political pragmatism
• Robert Fico
• SMER-SD

Acknowledgements

This article is partially based on Hana Mravcová´ master thesis defended at Masaryk University in 2019.

The authors would like to thank the anonymous referees for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 In terms of its location on the left-to-right political spectrum (cf. Gyárfášová and Henderson 2018).

2 The Progressive Slovakia party was officially registered only at the end of 2017, that is, after Robert Fico’s rhetorical shift. However, as a civil society movement it first emerged in autumn 2016, and hints at its future transformation into a political party attracted media attention. Thus Progressive Slovakia can be included in consideration of what caused the Slovak government to change its European policy.

3 In Poland (as well as in Hungary) governments in recent years have been losing their “ideological flexibility”, anchoring themselves in strongly Eurosceptic positions.

4 Although Smer’s position before March 2017 was not anti-European, many pronouncements made by the leaders of this strongest party of government were tinted by opposition to the steps taken by the European Commission.

5 This approach is compatible with a minimalist definition of politicisation, which is seen as the increasing salience of a particular topic (cf. Grande and Hutter 2016, 25 or Green-Pedersen 2012).

6 Interviews were conducted with political scientists who focus on Slovak political parties including the framework of European integration, an expert on Slovakia’s foreign policy and European affairs, an important political commentator, the editor-in-chief of a website on European affairs, an MEP for Smer and a Slovak diplomat. The respondents are referred to as R1-R7. The following interviews were conducted: Interview with Slovak member of European Parliament and member of Smer-SD: Brno: 13.10. 2018; Interview with the expert of Slovak Foreign Policy Association, SFPA: Bratislava: 19.10. 2018; Interview with the journalist of Euractiv Slovensko, Euractiv: Bratislava 3.10. 2018; Interview with the political commentator of Slovak economic newspaper Trend, Trend: Bratislava: 2.10. 2018; Interview with the senior lecturer of Department of International Relations and European Studies of FSS MU, FSS MU: Brno: 15.10. 2018; Interview with the assistant professors of Department of International Relations and European Studies of FSS MU, FSS MU: Brno 15.10. 2018; Interview with member of Permanent Representation of Slovakia to the EU: 25. 10. 2018.

7 This was an important policy agenda at this time.

8 During the Slovak presidency, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency was created, the EU budget, focused on growth and employment, was approved for the upcoming period, a trade agreement was signed between the EU and Canada and progress was achieved in modernising the instruments of trade protection (European Parliament 2016).

9 The Rome Declaration is a joint proclamation of the leaders of the member states dated 25 March 2017 and concerns the future of cooperation in the EU.

10 Particularly in the context of the electoral gains achieved in 2016, as compared with the previous elections in 2012. After the 2016 elections, support for the party as assessed by opinion polls was either stable or slightly declining, showing no hint of increase.

11 The expression “bring it back” seems apt for Slovakia. As in many other countries, EU issues were variously seen as more or less salient at different points in time. They were particularly important at the time of the 1998 electoral success of the pro-European future prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, who defeated the prime minister at the time, Vladimír Mečiar, whose politics posed an obstacle to Slovakia's accession to the EU.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Grant Agency of the Czech Republic: [Grant Number GA18-05612S].

Notes on contributors

Hana Mravcová

Hana Mravcová is a Ph.D. student at the Department of International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University (Czech Republic). She focuses on the contemporary European politics of Slovakia and the Europeanisation of civil society.

Vratislav Havlík

Vratislav Havlík is associate professor at Masaryk University (Czech Republic). His research focuses on Europeanisation and paradiplomacy. He is the author of the monograph Cities as Partner of Governance Process and of various research articles (including in Journal of Common Market Studies and European Planning Studies) primarily dealing with local level participation in European governance.