How did Slovakia get over Meciarism? Lessons for Ukraine
BRATISLAVA — Slovakia is several years younger than independent Ukraine. After bidding farewell to the Czech Republic in 1993, it has shown considerable progress by joining the EU and NATO, something Ukraine is still dreaming about. The Slovak Republic is considered to be the best graphic example of integration into Euro-Atlantic structures. Moreover, Slovakia and Slovenia are the only post-socialist countries to have entered the euro zone.
In the mid-1990s, Slovakia was regarded as Europe’s black hole due to Vladimir Meciar’s authoritarian presidency. The latter was compared to the style of Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma. It was precisely because Meciar was trying to have everything under control that the EU showed Slovakia the red card, something unprecedented in the history of EU expansion. Grigori Mesezhnikov explained to Ukrainian journalists at the Institute for Public Affairs in Bratislava that in 1998 Europe and Slovakia had doubts about the course this country would take.
The Slovak expert said that civic organizations helped carry out public campaigns against the dictator who was excluded from the integration process. Vlado Talian, head of the NGO Hlava 98, explained that video clips with pop stars, academicians, and athletes were used, among other things, to urge the population to take part in the elections. One such clip had a noted Slovak historian against the inscription “We Aren’t Indifferent!” — he explained that democracies succeeded if elections were held to cleanse these countries and help them move forwards. Thanks to such civic organization, the 1998 parliamentary election turnout was 83 percent, the largest in Slovakia’s electoral history, said Talian.
After the elections a broad coalition came to power. It was made up of left- and right-wing democrats, centrist, and the Hungarian Minority Party. Mesezhnikov noted that all these parties supported the idea of EU and NATO membership. In September 1999, Slovakia received the Membership Action Plan, and the government adopted a national NATO membership program that envisaged army reform, new security and defense laws, and military and defense strategy. This process was completed within three years.
Considering that 35 percent of the Slovak population supported the NATO membership idea, the government decided to enlist NGOs in an information campaign aimed at explaining the need to become a member of this military and political alliance. As a result, a year later popular support of the membership idea exceeded 50 percent. It was explained to people that this was interrelated with EU membership and 79 percent of the population supported it, said Mesezhnikov. He noted that one argument was that NATO membership would provide for better national security as guaranteed by Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Mesezhnikov believes that Slovakia’s successful integration into the EU and NATO is explained by the people’s awareness that they would be admitted. That was also why Slovakia succeeded in carrying out the administrative, judicial, and pension reforms, reducing the tax rate from 42 to 19 percent, implementing health care reform, making amendments to the Constitution, and enacting a new criminal code. The division of power and establishing a mechanism to secure public control over the way power is exercised also served as an important element of integration. Thus, a law on free access to information was enacted in 2001. Under this law any citizen can receive information from a government agency concerning budget spending. Failing to receive the requested data within eight days, this citizen can sue this agency and even the president.
Pavol Demes, director of the German Marshall Fund for Central and Eastern European countries, believes that Ukraine should analyze the similarities and distinctions between it and Slovakia before studying its experience of integration into these Euro-Atlantic structures. First, he says, in terms of similarities, both Ukraine and Slovakia are post-socialist countries, and this has a certain effect on our mentality. “Second, we are new countries that started building our states from scratch, so we have been passing through numerous transition periods. Third, we are Slavs, so Ukraine is closer to Slovakia than France and Germany, both EU members, are. And so we are more chaotic and less punctual.”
As for distinctions, Demes says they are as follows. First, Ukraine is a post-Soviet country, part of the former Soviet Union, where the central government had everything under control, where there was a vertical chain of command, so the past has a stronger effect on Ukrainians than Slovaks. Second, Russia plays a bigger role in Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policies compared to Slovakia. Third, there is the factor of the size and varying regional attitudes to the Ukrainian state. This is a challenge to modernization and consensus, so it is necessary to adjust politics to various audiences, stresses Demes. He further points out such distinctions between these countries as the presence of oligarchs in Ukrainian politics and the low level of preparedness to adhere to written and unwritten rules in Ukraine.
Demes believes it was a good gesture on the part of President Viktor Yanukovych to visit Brussels first. Comparing the current situation of Ukraine with that of Slovakia before joining the EU, this Slovak expert says that “we were then offered a fruit we could easily pick off the tree, whereas Ukraine is offered one it will have to get by climbing this tree.” Since the EU membership procedures have been complicated, Ukraine must make every effort to change for the better, modernize, and get better prepared for climbing and picking the fruit of EU membership.
Slovakia wouldn’t have been admitted to the EU and NATO without NGOs, civil society, public information, and expertise, says Demes, and Slovakia is prepared to share its experience. Ukraine, therefore, should send more students and government officials, so they can see the way the modernization process has evolved and what barriers were surmounted and how. He adds that Ukraine doesn’t have to deal with all EU countries and politicians, only with the ones that know and take an interest in Ukraine. Here the size of an EU member country doesn’t matter. At the same time, Demes notes that the EU regards Ukraine as a country which is hard to deal with, because it is hard to understand who is who there.
Demes stresses that Ukraine should do its best to build its positive image in Europe. Here the role of the media is to spread the word about Ukraine in the world and tell the EU how to help Ukraine. He adds that it is important to emphasize Ukraine’s desire to expand cooperation with the EU, but that there are obstacles like visa procedures. It is necessary to act pragmatically, be able to bargain over deals with Brussels and perhaps learn from the Serbian experience, considering that this country managed to have the EU lift the visa barrier. The main thing, he stresses, is to have consensus within Ukraine: “Without it you will never join the EU or NATO. … Most importantly, you have to keep hoping and working in this direction.”
