Yearbook of Slovakia's Foreign Policy 2009
Yearbook of Slovakia's Foreign Policy 2009

Author(s): Peter Brezáni
Contributor(s): Martin Firák (Translator), Rebecca Murray (Translator), Rastislav Majorský (Translator)
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Social Sciences, Economy, Energy and Environmental Studies, Sociology, Economic policy, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Evaluation research, Policy, planning, forecast and speculation, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment, Socio-Economic Research, Politics and Identity
Published by: Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SFPA)
Keywords: 2009; Slovakia; EU; Russia; NATO; foreign policy; foreign minister; international relations; Eastern partnership; V4 presidency; politics; economy; crisis; Corfu Process; North Atlantic Alliance; institutional changes; energy; gas; Ukraine;
Summary/Abstract: If the foreign policy of any state is to be successful it must have its own form, its own language and be part of public – institutionally framed – discourse. There is, however, no such ‘institutional umbrella’ covering all those responsible for the formulation and implementation of our foreign policy as well as those in Slovakia who are not indifferent to it. Moreover, there is often little will to open such an umbrella ‘over’ our foreign policy. Even the political parties do not pay much attention to foreign policy and thus issues of foreign policy are only occasionally part of the general public discourse. It is, however, the open, coherent and constant exchange of views, opinions, know-how, arguments from experience and/or long-term plans among the groups mentioned that play a crucial role in planning foreign policy. All of these reasons keep convincing us that we need to regularly evaluate where Slovak foreign policy currently is, which important events occurred in the preceding year and what challenges lie ahead of Slovakia in the near future. The Yearbook is in this regard a unique forum primarily focused on Slovakia´s foreign policy. The book provides space for those who make decisions and practically implement them as well as to those who care a lot about the future of foreign policy, such as researchers active in academic circles, think-tanks or non-governmental organizations. The Yearbook is a unique project entering another decade of its existence. It has been contributing for eleven years – and successfully, we are convinced – to the development of a tradition of regular evaluation and analysis of Slovak foreign policy and supporting the cultivation of foreign policy thinking in Slovakia. The publication represents an important, yet at the same time, solitary, and indeed limited, printed book resource keeping record of the development of Slovakia’s foreign policy and the discussion on its further orientation. The Yearbook assesses 2009 as a year rich in events. In 2009, Slovakia celebrated the fifth anniversary of her EU and NATO membership as well as the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. At the same time it was the very first year of entering the Euro Zone. 2009 will also be remembered as a year of important institutional changes within the EU as well as in its practical operation; a year in which we once again elected our representatives to the European Parliament or one in which the Union got its new President and Foreign Minister. Implementation of the Eastern Partnership program was commenced and the integration project in the Balkans continued. In 2009 discussion on NATO’s new Strategic Concept started, while that on Afghanistan still continued. Within the OSCE Slovakia was very actively participating in the organization’s revitalization. It was also a year when debate on mitigation of the impacts of the economic and energy crisis and their associated challenges predominated. A year, then, of another stage in the improvement of the institutional framework of Slovak foreign policy. In the context of all of these events and their impacts on our foreign policy, the second decade of the Yearbook opens with an assessment of our line of action and a presentation of our objectives and interests in the international environment, continues with an analysis of the realization of the priority areas of our foreign policy and is concluded with an assessment of the efficacy of the instruments required for its implementation. The analytical assessment is again supplemented by an evaluation/ presentation of the Foreign Ministry’s representatives. The Yearbook offers all this to the somewhat limited degree characteristic of such publications. The Yearbook opens for the third time with a survey presented by the Minister of Foreign Affairs. His text evaluates and presents the problems and aspects of Slovakia’s foreign policy that are analyzed in depth by other authors in the Yearbook. Thus the reader is given a unique opportunity to examine the ‘same issue’ from different angles in one publication. The expert section of the Yearbook starts with a text analyzing Slovakia’s performance in an international environment. The first contribution, which by tradition is that of Vladimír Bilčík of the Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (RC SPFA), covers the crucial events of Slovakia’s performance in the EU – the issue of representation and operation of the key EU institutions as well as a reflection on the first five years of Slovakia’s EU membership. It analyzes the positions and tasks of the Slovak Republic before and during the European Parliament elections, and in the creation of the European Commission as well as those connected with the process of adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon. It also offers a brief summary of the key issues important for Slovakia’s successful performance within the EU in the upcoming period. The security aspects of our foreign policy are assessed by Matúš Korba from the Center for Security Studies. In his text he analyzes the growing disproportion between the political ambitions of Slovakia within NATO and our real military capabilities that is connected with the internal crisis of the reform process within the Armed Forces of the Slovak Republic, which was even further exacerbated in 2009. The OSCE revitalization, the future of the European security debate and Slovakia’s role in it are all evaluated by Marcel Peško, the Permanent Representative and Head of the Permanent Mission to International Organizations in Vienna. The section on Slovakia’s performance in an international environment is concluded by a contribution by Milan Lapin, a prominent Slovak climatologist. In his article attention is mostly paid to the assessment of knowledge and activities that were carried out in 2009 and relate to climate changes and variability, including the Fifth National Communication of the Slovak Republic on Climate Change. The second part of the book, devoted to the priorities of our foreign policy, opens with a text by the Director-General for Economic Cooperation and ODA at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic Radomír Boháč. In his analysis, he focuses on the fulfillment of a re-established priority of our foreign policy – the economic dimension of Slovak diplomacy – in the context of the global financial and economic crisis and the challenges stemming from it. Urban Rusnák, Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic’s project on the External Energy Security of the Slovak Republic, reflects on the gas crisis of January 2009 as well as measures taken in the field of Slovak legislation and infrastructure on the level of national government as well as on the EU level. The analysis of Slovakia’s Central European activities was, as always, written by Tomáš Strážay, an RC SPFA analyst, who reassesses the cooperation principles and mechanisms aimed at rendering cooperation more intensive and more efficient. He also identifies and evaluates the most important challenges faced by the V4 presidency taken up by Slovakia. The key aspects of the Eastern Partnership program, its bilateral and multilateral components, Slovakia’s involvement in it as well as our bilateral activities in relation to the Eastern Partnership states are presented by Juraj Marušiak, a researcher at the Institute of Political Science of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. The final expert section devoted to instruments of foreign policy opens with a contribution by Ján Mihálik from Partners for Democratic Change Slovakia (PDCS) and Peter Brezáni from the RC SFPA, who concentrate their attention on the state of one of the most important bilateral instruments in Slovak foreign policy – development cooperation. The authors offer their perspective on practical fulfillment of objectives set within the official ODA documents, attempt to provide a summary of activities relating to Slovak development cooperation in 2009 as well as a set of recommendations intended to increase the quality and efficiency of Slovak ODA. The expert section concludes with a text by Ondrej Gažovič from the Institute of European Studies and International Relations of the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences at Comenius University in Bratislava, who evaluates the year 2009 as a year that had brought several factors contributing to clarification of this part of the foreign policy concept against the background of conditions in the Slovak Republic as well as to its institutionalization and practical implementation. The expert chapters are traditionally supplemented by annexes such as a chronology of important foreign policy events, a list of international treaties, information on the structure and representatives of state bodies operating in foreign policy, a list of diplomatic missions and representatives of the Slovak Republic abroad, a list of diplomatic corps in the Slovak Republic, information on military missions abroad etc. We firmly believe that the first issue of the Yearbook in the second decade of its existence will once again find a readership and serve all those who are interested in the past, present and future of Slovakia and her foreign policy. In conclusion, we would kindly like to express our gratitude to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Slovak Republic for its cooperation on this project and its support as well as for the fact that thanks to this support we are able to continue building on this much needed tradition.

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