By Pavol Stracansky
BRATISLAVA, Apr 26 2004 (IPS)

As the government prepares to celebrate Slovakia’s entry into the EU this weekend, many Slovaks appear to be approaching May 1 with a mixture of apprehension and ignorance.

In Kysucke Nove Mesto, a town of 25,000 in northern Slovakia where unemployment is just above the national average of 16 per cent, many people are concerned what life will be like once Slovakia is in the European Union (EU).

"No one knows what’s going to happen," says Milan, 27, who runs a bar in the town. "I don’t know what will happen with my business and what will happen with prices and whether people will even have enough money to still come here."

Milan’s view is typical of many in the town. The region has consistently recorded among the highest votes for anti-EU candidates in parliamentary and presidential elections since 1998 when Slovakia restarted negotiations on EU entry.

It also registered one of the lowest turnouts in a referendum last May on joining the EU, a referendum that saw only two percent more than the required 50 percent turnout to make it valid. The referendum approved entry into the EU.

Milan is unsure what effect harmonisation of pricing regulations and taxes will have. He also fears the effect higher prices could have on businesses like his that are just managing to break even or turn a small profit. "I’ve talked to people about it and no one seems to know what will happen," he says. "Everything will probably go up."

With an average monthly wage in Slovakia of around 415 dollars (350 euros) – about a tenth that of some western EU states – but with prices of some basic goods such as clothes and foods already on a par with those in existing EU states, the prospect of prices rising further after May 1 is frightening many.

Some have already rushed to supermarkets to stock up on goods like sugar and rice. The prices of both these are due to rise after May 1.

Information on the consequences of joining the EU has been offered via articles run in Slovak newspapers, a short series of programmes on public Slovak Television, and the setting up of an information office. Information is also offered on a website.

But there has been no visible mass information campaign launched by the state.

"Slovaks are very poorly informed," Pavel Haulik, an analyst at the MVK polling agency told IPS. "They generally seem to see it as a fact that they have been accepted as equals to other EU countries but not what is connected with EU entry. They don’t know enough about the technical side of it all and what EU entry will actually bring with it. They have their fears of the EU. For instance people think that prices will simply go up overnight."

The concerns are not limited to rising prices. Slovaks also fear an erosion of sovereignty in a larger EU.

"It’s like under communism again but with Brussels as the Soviet Union this time," says Renata, 23, a shop assistant in Kysucke nove Mesto. "They’ll have all the say in what we do and we won’t be able to do anything about it. They don’t care about the smaller countries like us or what we want." There have been no opinion polls on EU entry since the referendum last May, and analysts say it is hard to gauge the depth of either support or antipathy for the EU among Slovaks.

But both candidates in presidential elections earlier this month were top figures in the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) party that led fervently anti-EU programmes in the 1990s. The candidates put forward by the reformist pro-EU coalition government lost in the first round of voting.

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