SLOVAKIA: Tiny Stage to Command a Global Audience

By Pavol Stracansky Reprint | | Print |

Pavol Stracansky

BRATISLAVA, Feb 17 2005 (IPS) - Slovak businessmen and politicians are hoping a summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin will help put this relatively unknown country on the world’s economic and political map.

The summit to be held in capital Bratislava Feb. 24 was hailed by Slovak politicians as a diplomatic success for the former communist state when it was announced just before Christmas last year. They said it would raise the country’s profile exponentially..

But businessmen too are now looking forward to the international focus on a country that has already attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment but remains largely unknown to most people, and to many potential investors west of its borders.

"This is good news for Slovakia," said Ian Stewart, a Scottish businessman who has recently founded an independent property consultancy company in the Slovak capital. "It will put the country on the map and even though Bush and Putin will only be here for a few days the word Slovakia will stick in people’s minds, and they will start asking questions about it."

Since Czechoslovakia split into the Czech and Slovak republics in 1993, Slovakia, with a population of 5.4 million, has struggled to achieve international recognition to match its former federal partner state.

Many westerners have heard of the Czech capital Prague because it was also the capital of Czechoslovakia, but few know of Bratislava. Some, including Bush on one occasion have confused Slovakia with the nearby former Yugoslav nation Slovenia.

Differing political developments in both countries contributed to keeping Slovakia out of the eye and ear of much of the western world during the 1990s.

While the Czechs moved relatively easily to North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) membership, and were invited to join the European Union, Slovakia became an international pariah and was then excluded from both bodies because of concerns over human rights under the autocratic leadership of right-wing politician Vladimir Meciar.

Economists said that exclusion from those organisations and concerns over Meciar’s rule stunted the country’s economic development, and kept away much-needed foreign investment crucial to driving the economies of post-communist states in their transition to free markets.

But after Meciar lost the elections in late 1998, two successive governments brought Slovakia membership of both NATO and the European Union.

The current government has supported the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, and foreign policy experts say that the choice of Bratislava for the summit was likely to have been influenced in part by that support.

Experts believe the international media focus on Bratislava later this month can be used by the state to promote the country around the world. "Slovakia and the Slovaks will be made visible – something that has not been achieved very well since it became independent – via the international media coverage of the summit," Ivo Sampson of the independent Slovak Foreign Policy Association told IPS.

"Making the country visible and showing people that the place is safe to hold such a big international leaders’ summit will mean investors know it is safe and they can come here and invest," he said. "That is possibly the biggest benefit the country could get from hosting this summit."

Politicians have focused also on the implications of hosting the summit for Slovakia’s foreign policy ambitions.

Some critics of Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda have accused him of being too keen in his support for President Bush and the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. But Dzurinda, who has spoken of the "personal friendship" he feels for President Bush, told local media that the fact the two presidents had chosen to meet in Bratislava was evidence that the government’s foreign policy was "balanced".

"The summit destroys the myths and disinformation that I have made Slovakia an island of American influence," he said. "My message to all those who claim that is that on 24 February there will be a meeting between the President of the United States of America and the President of the Russian Federation in Bratislava, and I think this speaks for itself."