POLITICS-SLOVAKIA: Saddam’s Shadow Over a Small Nation

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Ed Holt and Martina Pisarova

BRATISLAVA, Mar 11 2003 (IPS) - Slovakia is not quite sure what it is getting into when it joins the European Union next year.

Slovakia, with a population of just five million, is among the ten new countries due to join the European Union (EU) next year. It is also due to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). But it finds its move towards integration confronted with deep divisions within the EU, and between leading EU nations and the U.S.

The current crisis is not expected to stand in the way of integration into the EU or NATO, but the divisions within the EU make NATO membership questionable. ”NATO is based on loyalty and mutual support, and trust between Europe and the U.S.,” says Frantisek Sebej, former chairman of Slovakia’s parliamentary integration committee. ”If this loyalty is proved to be lacking then there is a big question mark over the whole organisation.”

The U.S. is being backed by a number of central and east European states. Romania and Bulgaria have allowed U.S. troops on their territory for an attack on Iraq. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have sent special units to the Gulf. Other states are giving diplomatic support.

The moves have angered French President Jacques Chirac, who has called their support to the U.S. ”primitive”.

Juraj Marusiak, foreign policy specialist at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava says Slovak support to the U.S. in an attack would not have ”any dramatic consequences, no fists being banged on the table.”

But if the U.S. were to go to war without a UN mandate and without the support of important European states such as Germany and France, and succeed in dismantling Saddam Hussein’s regime, ”a long term weakening of the mutual trust between the U.S. and Europe could begin,” Marusiak says.

Slovakia will not be alone in taking a pro-American approach, says Grigorij Meseznikov, head of the Institute for Public Affairs. ”The majority of EU countries are likely to support the U.S. action,” he says.

Vladimir Bilcik from the independent Slovak Foreign Policy Association in Bratislava says the failure to take a common position on Iraq means the EU must decide whether a common foreign policy is achievable or desirable. ”The future of transatlantic cooperation in security and defence will have to be addressed by both the EU and NATO,” he says.

The rift could also strengthen efforts to ”strengthen the foreign policy and defence pillars of the EU and to create a more coherent stance even perhaps through the establishment of an EU foreign minister,” Bilcik says.

The EU seems to matter more to Slovaks than NATO. An opinion poll early March showed 79 per cent support to join the EU, and 48 per cent for NATO membership.

A referendum on entry into the EU is obligatory under the Slovak constitution. But some people are now asking for a referendum on NATO entry as well. The government has resisted any such move.