The defense agreement between Slovakia and the United States separates politics and society. Former prime minister Robert Fico plans to push for a public referendum on the deal
The planned bilateral defense agreement (DCA) between Slovakia and the United States, which was approved by the country’s right-wing government last week, has divided Slovak politics and society over Russia. The treaty has faced growing opposition since it was introduced late last year.
The DCA will allow the US Air Force to use the Slovak military airports Malacky-Kucina and Sliac and possibly other facilities without being asked to pay rent for 10 years.
The two main centre-left opposition parties are now planning to hold a referendum on US military bases in Slovakia.
According to opinion polls, Slovaks tend to be more skeptical of NATO and more tolerant of Russia than their Central European neighbors. The deployment of foreign troops in the country remains highly controversial due to the experience of the 1968 Prague Spring. Growing tensions around neighboring Ukraine have heightened those fears.
Slovakia began negotiating a defense deal with the US three years ago, when the opposition was in power. The then leadership of the Ministry of Defense decided not to continue negotiations in 2019, a year before the parliamentary elections that led to the change of government, justifying this by saying that it opposed the creation of legal conditions for the activities of foreign troops in the country.
On January 18, a protest action organized by the extra-parliamentary party Socialisti.sk against the DCA took place in front of the parliament building. The protesters supported the parliamentary opposition, namely the opposition party Smer-SD led by Robert Fico, which plans to hold a public referendum on the DCA.
Fico said that under the DCA, Ukrainian rebels could be trained on NATO’s eastern border with Ukraine, such as Poland, Romania and Slovakia, citing a New York Times article that allegedly quoted US administration officials.
According to the Slovak News Agency (TASR), Fico said specific provisions of the DCA say that US military vehicles, ships and aircraft will be allowed to roam freely in Slovakia.
“Now imagine how easy it would be to train Ukrainian rebels here, and then transport them to Ukraine without any problems so that they can fight in a potential conflict,” Fico was quoted as saying by TASR.
“Smer-SD does not want any US bases in Slovakia, this is contrary to the content of the DCA and definitely does not want Ukrainian rebels to be trained in the country,” he added, stressing that this is reason enough for a public referendum on whether citizens want to Slovakia “US military bases and training of Ukrainian rebels” on its territory.
“The agreement contains many negative consequences for Slovakia. This only imposes obligations on us, significantly limiting the rights that Slovakia will have in relation to the United States”, he said.
Artur Bekmatov, chairman of the Socialisti.sk party, who led the protests, supported Fico. He added that it is irresponsible to accept such an agreement now against the backdrop of worsening relations between Russia and the United States because of Ukraine.
In addition, Andrej Danko, leader of the nationalist extra-parliamentary Slovak National Party (SNS), sees DCA as a violation of Slovakia’s sovereignty, arguing that DCA violates relations with NATO by promoting an agreement with one country above the interests of others.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the speculation published in The New York Times, saying that “we urge politicians and conspirators in Slovakia to pay more attention to what is important to Slovakia, namely the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine as our closest neighbor, than in ready-made statements in press and alarmism, which uses the defense cooperation agreement with us.”
According to Slovak Foreign Minister Ivan Korkok, DCA is an important goal of the Slovak four-party government and shows that the government takes the country’s security and defense policy seriously.
“If we declare that Slovakia has a clear position in international relations and a pro-Atlantic orientation, this is not only on paper, but at such important moments when we want to strengthen the defense in accordance with these declarations,” said Corcock, quoted by another Slovak edition.
In addition, Fico’s claims were rejected by the Department of Defense.
“Such an event, which allegedly comes from an unspecified source in the US administration, has never been discussed with Slovakia either on a bilateral or multilateral level. The information is not based on reality,” the ministry said in a statement provided to TASR.
On January 18, parliament decided to reject the Smer-SD proposal to put the DCA to a public vote in a referendum. This move received support only from the opposition.
Both Fico and former prime minister Peter Pellegrini (chairman of the non-parliamentary centre-left party Hlas-SD/Voice-SD) have been expressing their opposition to the government’s policies and actions for some time now. Last year they made several unsuccessful attempts to call a public referendum on early elections.
The last discussion of the referendum on early elections was to take place on January 18, for which the chairman of the House of Representatives Boris Kollar (junior government partner, of which we are a family) convened a round table between the coalition and the opposition. However, none of the other members of the ruling parties showed up.
Kollar proposed amending the constitution to allow early elections through referenda, but only after 2024, which was rejected by the opposition. Fico complained that the coalition had once again shown how ignorant it was of the Constitution and the rules of democracy.
“The coalition turned away from the people by not appearing. Today it is impossible to pass any amendments to the Constitution, given that we do not have 90 legislators. We cannot agree that they are proposing that these changes only come into effect from 2024. The people must have the opportunity to overthrow the government in this current elected term, and not just in the next”, TASR quoted Pellegrini as saying.
“Early parliamentary elections can only be called by amending the Constitution. And the only ones who can force the government to change the constitution are the people,” he added.
Claiming that early elections in the lower house will never take place, both parties want to petition for a referendum to change the constitution, which will be linked to the referendum.
Source: bne IntelliNews