EU:"Some compromise" was needed on all sides to ensure passage of the EU constitutional treaty, the speaker of the Slovak parliament, Mr Pavol Paska, said on a visit to Dublin this week. But he expressed some impatience that no road-map to ratification had yet been proposed by Germany's EU presidency.
Slovakia was one of the first EU members to ratify the treaty, by a vote in parliament. "The EU needs the constitutional treaty," Mr Paska said. "Personally, I think there must be some compromise."
Interviewed by The Irish Times, he said he accepted that countries like France and the Netherlands could not be asked to approve "the same text with the same structure". But he warned that time was "running out", adding that the German EU presidency, which was already in its second month, had still not given any clear indication of the proposed mechanism for securing ratification.
Mr Paska is also deputy leader of Smer (Direction or Third Way), a social democratic party which is the leading element in Slovakia's three-party coalition.
As a left-of-centre party, Smer seeks to soften the edges of free-market capitalism without damaging the country's competitiveness. "The programme is based on a new social vision," Mr Paska said.
Steps had been taken to improve social protection, but there has been no increase in the corporate tax rate, which remains at 19 per cent.
Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia until the non-violent "velvet divorce" in 1993 and the Slovaks joined the EU in May 2004. The country is keen to develop its relations with Ireland and Mr Paska was preceded by prime minister Robert Fico, who visited Dublin last November.
Some 30,000 Slovaks are living and working quite happily in Ireland, but Mr Paska hopes that the right economic conditions can be created to attract them home again. He is an admirer of Ireland's economic success and hopes that his country will adopt "something similar" to our "Towards 2016" agreement between the social partners. The schedule for his visit included a meeting with the Oireachtas European Affairs Committee.
Smer came into power promising to reduce involvement in Iraq, and there are now only 11 training instructors from the Slovak armed forces in that country, compared with the previous contingent of 99 army engineers. "We consulted with our American friends step by step and it took maybe half a year."
The country has, however, become more deeply involved in Afghanistan and recently agreed to move an engineering unit from Kabul to Kandahar, where the situation is considerably more dangerous. Slovakia is currently serving a two-year term on the UN Security Council and holds the presidency this month.
Mr Paska favours further EU expansion: "We should support enlargement and the first one must be Croatia." He is more ambivalent about Turkey, but believes that the door should be kept open, adding: "It's not good to close the doors."
