THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC
THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SECURITY AND DEFENCE POLICY OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Summary/Abstract: The thinking of the Slovak elite in area of military, defence and especially security policy passed over quite development during the Slovak Republic’s existence. In the first years it was a fact that the attitudes towards NATO and European Union were not clarified. After 1994, foreign and accordingly security and defence policy of the Slovak Republic (SR) became more or less speculative and, consequently, Slovakia found itself out of a main stream of integration processes. Parliamentary elections in 1998 brought a change that signified a consolidation of internal policy situation and changes in characters of foreign and security policy of the Slovak Republic. Pursuant to a realistic assessment of international position of the Slovak Republic an integration strategy with two main aims was formulated. The first aim was to rebuild a confidence and to strengthen the co-operation with the NATO and European Union members and the second one was to acquire a membership of both structures. The first aim was achieved in 2002, when the Slovak Republic obtained an invitation to the NATO entry talks and was asked to join the European Union, the other one when the Slovak Republic joined NATO on the 29th March, 2004 and EU on the 1st May, 2004.

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