It’s been a rough few weeks for Slovakia. First, its capital is passed up as the new host of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) after Brexit in favor of Amsterdam. Then its finance minister, Peter Kažimír, resigns from the race for the Eurogroup leadership — a position that would have given the country a real seat at the table, for once.
Slovaks reacted to the bad news from Brussels with overblown self-flagellation. Bratislava, much of Slovakia’s commentariat agreed, was a terrible place to live — who would want to move there from London? And Kažimír was an awful candidate who is not doing enough to stabilize public finances at home (notwithstanding this year’s deficit, expected at around 1.29 percent of GDP) and has not been able to eradicate tax fraud in the country. [...]
There are grounds for optimism. Neither outcome — no matter how disappointing — sparked the outrage at “traitors” or out-of-touch cosmopolitan elites that usually follows controversial decisions out of Brussels. Not even Slovak politicians who harbor very little affection for the EU used the occasion to criticize the bloc. [...]
Slovakia will never be a large country and wield a voice comparable to that of Poland, let alone Germany or France. But it can be an influential country if it matches a commitment to EU integration with effective domestic reforms to update its public administration, health care and education systems. And if Slovak leaders also have a clear vision and strategy of what they are trying to accomplish in Europe.
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