POLITICS-SLOVAKIA: NATO is Hope for Prosperity

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ed Holt and Martina Pisarova

BRATISLAVA, Nov 27 2002 (IPS) - NATO seems to promise Slovaks greater security, but also a reduction of crippling unemployment, and hope of keeping university graduates within the country.

Slovakia, a central European nation with a population of five million, received an invitation to join NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) at the summit of the Western military alliance in Prague November 21. Slovakia is expected to join NATO in spring 2004 along with six other post-communist countries – Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia.

A poll by Slovak television (STV) hours after that invitation showed 51 per cent expecting the alliance to bring greater security. But 31 per cent said they also expected investment to flood into the country.

With unemployment running at 16.5 per cent nationally but as much as 50 per cent in some regions, many people have long hoped that membership of NATO and the European Union would strengthen investor confidence.

Economists say these hopes could soon be realised. "We expect the economy to grow at high speed," says Martin Barto, an economist with the Slovenska Sporitelna Bank. "Membership of NATO and the EU makes Slovakia a safe place for investors."

A recent study estimated that if Slovakia were to attract as much foreign investment as the neighbouring Czech Republic after it joined NATO in 1997, Slovakia’s unemployment rate would fall to roughly 10 per cent.

New investment is expected in the IT (information technology) sector and the once flourishing but now struggling arms industry, analysts say. Heads of Western IT companies have often praised the skill of Slovaks. But lack of opportunities in Slovakia and higher wages abroad have lured many Slovaks in IT to Western Europe.

The arms industry suffered after the fall of communism in 1989 and the split of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993. Many factories which had produced military equipment and weapons for Warsaw Pact troops were closed and tens of thousands of people lost their jobs.

Barto says entry into NATO could bring a revival of the arms industry and more opportunity in other sectors. "The image of Slovakia abroad will change, potentially resulting in more purchases of Slovak products abroad," he says. "Some opportunities have indeed been missed, but plenty of new investments are being created. Now it is just a matter of taking hold of these chances."

Political leaders are also promising more investment and more jobs following NATO membership. "We still have a high unemployment rate," says Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda. "But I expect that foreign investors’ interest in Slovakia will now increase massively."

Polls over the past two years have shown 60 per cent support for joining NATO. That also indicates there are many who are not convinced that NATO membership will reduce unemployment and raise living standards.

"What are we going to produce?" says Ladislav Jaca, deputy leader of the parliamentary Slovak Communist Party (KSS). "Upholstery for car seats for the west?"

The only one of the country’s six parliamentary parties opposed to NATO membership, the KSS calls the alliance a Cold War anachronism. "I don’t believe that membership will mean better living for us because being a member of NATO means increased investments in defence," Jaca told IPS. "And once Slovakia is pulled into war, these investments will be even higher."

Slovakian leaders want the country to be a model new member, Jaca said, but "I always like to think what would happen if their sons were sent to their deaths on the front lines."

POLITICS-SLOVAKIA: NATO is Hope for Prosperity

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ed Holt and Martina Pisarova

BRATISLAVA, Nov 27 2002 (IPS) - NATO seems to promise Slovaks greater security, but also a reduction of crippling unemployment, and hope of keeping university graduates within the country.
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