What Role Has Europe Played in Party Politics in Slovakia
What Role Has Europe Played in Party Politics in Slovakia

Summary/Abstract: From the ‘return to Europe’ discourse of the early 1990s, through the promulgation of the Copenhagen criteria, Slovakia’s exclusion from the first wave of applicant states on explicitly political grounds in 1997, her subsequent invitation to begin accession negotiations at the Helsinki European Council in 1999, to Slovakia’s entry on 1 May 2004, membership of the EU appears to have played a central role in shaping internal Slovak politics. The article argues, however, that party competition and policy formation have been driven primarily by domestic concerns. It is argued that frequently Europe’s role has been more as a rhetorical tool with which to brow beat political opponents or as a device to cloak policy prescriptions rather than as the major variable shaping politics.

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