Wordle-izing Slovakia's centre-left

And, as I know you've all been lying awake, wondering about the politics of Central European social democracy, here's a quick Wordle-ization of the prgramme that Robert Fico's Smer is serving up to the Slovak electorate for their also forthcoming elections - as in the CR from an eroding position of strength but as a dominant and incumbent party, rather than the kind of hard hitting opposition you wouldn't want to meet on a dark night in the middle of a tricky EU presidency.

Compared to their Czech colleague Smer's programme throws up a lot less in the way of concrete policy, stresses the words 'Slovak' and 'state' an awful lot - suggesting a more nationalist note (as frankly you would expect) as well as the party's name. The spread of key words also suggests greater emphasis on the politics of anti-crisis and the country's position in the world economy.

A tale of two Slovakias

SSEES marks the 20th anniversary of November 1989 with two contrasting Slovak speakers - a nice touch, as the fall of communism in the Czechoslovakia is so often reduced to events in Prague. The Magic Lantern, Václav Havel, speech from the balcony of the Melantrich building, vast crowds packing Wenceslas Square, more crowds crowds jangling their keys in unison at rallies on the Letna plain to ring out the change of regime. Dozens of local transitions get forgotten as does and a fully fledged Tender (or Gentle) Revolution (Nežná revolúcia) in Slovakia. Similar, but different to the Velvet Revolution played out in the neighbouring Czech lands
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The first visitor to SSEES is Fedor Gál, Slovakia sociologist, researcher, opposition activist and (latterly) film-maker and media entrepreneur, who is presenting his new documentary Dobré ráno, Slovensko (Good Morning, Slovakia) which chronicles the last days of the regime, the revolution and first six months of 1990 as the Public Against Violence movement Gál chaired (see photo below) started to be bruisingly pushed aside and internally fracture under the growing pressure from Slovak nationalism, some of it animated by ill concealed anti-semitism. Gál left to live in Prague in 1992, but is still well known enough to drawn an audience of 60-70. Most, as I later discover, are young Slovak and Czech students, though almost none from SSEES curiously enough.

Things get off to a bad start when, after opening remarks, it becomes clear that the English language version of the film won't play. We can, however, show it in Slovak, which is OK for around 80% of the audience and perhaps a blessing in disguise as the English version is overdubbed, rather undermining its effect, rather than subtitled. The film, however, is powerful and well made and in the Q and A that follows Gál shows himself to be a magnetic and charismatic speaker. If you wondered why he was a revolutionary leader, this would answer your question. The questioners are all young, the question all in Czech or Slovak, self-translated in English. Everyone agrees that communism-nationalism-and-populist social-democracy are all part and parcel of the same illiberal conundrum that plays to the lowest, materialistic and most provincial inclinations of the Slovak and Czech populace and still haunts the region. Why did thy not handle things more smartly? Boli sme blbí, Gál tells his listeners in a line you feel he's probably used before. But given the revolutionary avalanche of events and the fact he bowed out of politics almost two decades ago, that's perhaps a more than acceptable answer.

Showing up in the grander circumstances on 17 November itself to give a lecture, Slovak Prime Minister, Robert Fico represents precisely that Other Slovakia (my phrase) that Gál and his listeners so dislike. We had expected a bland speech, but characteristically Fico decided to deal with controversial issues bluntly and head on: not everything under communism had been all bad -welfare standards were higher and teaching in universities 'more systematic'; there had been privations and bureaucracy - he himself had had to queue through the night to book his honeymoon to Malta; the revolution was not a cause for unbridled celebration as the 'tribunes of the revolution' didn't deliver on promises of fairness and freedom and hacked away a lot of ordinary people's social certainties in their pursuit of economic and party self-interest (until the arrival of R. Fico and Smer, you understand. Politically, this is some extent a necessary move as in 1989 Fico was a member of Communist Party of Slovakia (having joined in 1987) working at the Institute of State and Law of the Academy of Sciences, although on the other hand some Czech Social Democrats have similar backgrounds as bright young things in the late socialist nomenklatura and don't feel the need for such a 'balanced' assessment of the old regime.

The main achievement of the revolution in this rather interesting Fico-ean interpretation was that it opened up the way for an independent Slovakia and for further economic modernization, although an over dependence on car construction for export would entail an economic strategy based on high public spending in these days of global recession, partly to invest in education.

In the Q & A Fico switched to Slovak, ostensibly for the sake of not being misquoted or misunderstood by the Slovak media in not quite perfect English, but presumably also because he knew he was going to say something worthy of that night's TV news. There were three questions to which he gave long, unfazed confident answers, perhaps being Robert Fico he could guess what he was going to be asked: the quality of Slovak higher education (admittedly poor, too many universities, too much local pride at stake); what would he do if he were a Slovak Hungarian (cherish and protect his own culture and learn to speak perfect Hugarian); and did he think there was a trade-off between freedom and prosperity (no but golden plated freedom could be a bit costly - Slovak officials weren't well resourced enough to deal with too many freedom of information requests).

My sympathies were, it must be said, not with Fico, who made a more convincing case for himself on his last visit in UCL in 2006. On the other hand, he has turned out to have played the smarter political game and, as one leading specialist on Slovak politics, reminded me after afterwards it is a sign of progress to have 'bog standard left-wing politics' dominating the Slovak political scence not the more paranoid and dangerous nationalism of the Mečiar era - a period oddly absent from Fico's speech - albeit suffused with a bit of dodgy nomenklatura nostalgia for social cosseting of the normalization era.

The text of the speech doesn't seem to be on the net yet, but extracts from YouTube can be seen here. Gál's film (broken down into 14 short episodes) can be seen (in Slovak) here.

Update: A video of the full lecture has now appeared on the UCL-SSEES website here.

Slovakia: New social services law highlights creeping statism

Slovak daily Sme reports on an amendment to the Law on Social Services passing through the Slovak parliament supported by the ruling centre-left Sme that obliges regional authorities to take social services from public providers (preferably ones they have established themselves) and only then, if there is no capacity to, use private/third sector providers. Social services clients can opt for non-state providers but lose care allowances, if they do (some choice). Opposition deputies criticized the amendment as denying choice and suppressed civil society/the third sector. Doubtless there are a few counter-arguments about cost, quality and risks of commercialization, but the Slovak system seems in striking contrast with the recently reformed Czech Social Services law, which seeks to diversify the range of providers within a new toughened up inspection framework and add in offer some element of client/customer choice. Slovak regional authorities protest they simply don’t have the cash to run social services properly, although lack of resources is also a problem affecting the new Czech system.

Slovakia and Argentina: the East becoming the South - or the North?

Slovak daily Sme discusses the parallels between Argentina, Iceland and Slovakia as small vulnerable economies and, specifically, the state taking control of the second pillar of a reformed pension system (compulsory individual savings). The global financial crisis is of course in a sense, good news for politicians with genuine etatist leanings such as Robert Fico, for whom the three pillar pension system left by radically reforming predecessor governing has become a real battleground.

Slovakia: Greens to take new direction?

Slovak right-leaning/liberal daily Smer reports on the difficult relationship with Slovakia’s Green Party. While the Greens in the neighbouring Czech Republic are a key part of a centre-right coalition and relations with the opposition Social Democrats are pretty icy, Slovak Greens, more conventionally, have signed a co-operation agreement with Robert Fico’s governing centre-left Smer ('Direction') party. (Having flopped in the early 1990s - as happened in so much of CEE - the Slovak Greens were previously part of the not too successful centre-left e coalition with post-communists and social democrats before Smer came crashing onto the political scene, so there is a of precedent ). However, Prime Minister Fico’s criticisms of radical environmental protesters in the Tatra national park have not endeared him to his new allies in the small extra-parliamentary Green Party and raised doubts about the supposed ‘greening’ of Smer, a party better known for its nationalist and populist inclinations than its post-materialist concerns.

The Greens have also laid into the government’s motorway building plans and are none too keen on the current Minister of the Environment, Ján Chrbet, a member of the radical Slovak National Party (SNS) and his ‘populist’ allocation of EU environmental funds. Commentators quoted by the right-leaning Smer dismiss the party’s ‘greening’ as a superficial exercise designed to boost its social democratic credentials in the eyes of West European partners. Given the Slovak Greens’ dissatisfaction and reasonably good 2.7% rating in recent polls, it looks like they may be tempted to go elsewhere and perhaps try their luck as Czech style eco-liberal party.

Of parties, populism and partocracy

Slovak political scientist Miroslav Kusý writes a commentary about ‘partocracy’ in Slovakia in the liberal daily Sme. This theme, once a favourite uniting ex-dissidents, liberals and anti-political populists with a more rough hewn character, has receded from academic and intellectual debate in the past few years in favour of a slightly different take on the problem of (supposedly) defective and sub-standard democracy in CEE: populism a.k.a. ‘the populist backlash’.

Kusý’s definition of ‘partocracy’ is a fairly straightforward one: party government carried out for not the people but for parties- i.e. parties failing in their tasks of representing and aggregating the popular will (or some portion of it). A principal-agent problem, as we call it in the trade. Then, however, we descend into partisanship. The current coalition led by Robert Fico's populist-cum-social democrat party Smer Kusý says is an example of partocracy because it lacks ideologically common position with its smaller nationalist coalition allies and is united with them by a thirst for office, as (supposedly) proved by various scandals.

Kusy also cites a recent article in the Czech intellectual weekly Literární noviny by Czech political scientist and ex-Havel advisor Jiří Pehe who regrets that parties have given up on ‘their traditional role of forces in society’ (and, yes, the language original Czech really does have that odd echo of the Communist Party’s ‘leading role’) but are instead (shock horror!) reacting to public opinion ‘to appeal to the largest possible number of people’. (Pehe’s piece is a rather dull piece retreading the Czech ‘party versus civil society’ Klaus-Havel debate of the 1990s, arguing that social modernization makes parties less necessary and a political role for NGOs, citizens and intellectuals more necessary).

Kusý himself laments the ‘vulgar vocabulary, party polemics instead of civilized dialogue, and insults instead of substantive argument’. Alas, as argument about democracy or explanation of developments in either contemporary Slovak (or Czech) politics none of this really washes. It’s hard to think of any concept of party competition by big parties that doesn’t involve appealing to large numbers of voters or many established democracies, where party political communication takes place at the level of an academic seminar without a dose of knockabout polemics. Pehe’s assertion that Western political parties have opened themselves up to civil society seems fairly questionable- who can he have in mind? Possibly Greens in a very early stage of development? And political polarization - contrary to what he seems to think - as often or not tends to increase political participation and the increase in turnout at the last Czech elections showed.

The argument in Sme about ‘partocracy’ is also pretty lame. Ad hoc, unprincipled coalitions do not add up to ‘partocracy’. The term was widely applied to clientelistic party systems with an element of cosy consensus between governing parties say as those of post-war Italy or Austria, but has an intellectual heritage going back the early 20^th century. In a CEE context one of thinks of critiques of interwar Czechoslovak democracy, both in 1920s and 30s and in more exaggerated form after 1945 (Evard Beneš’s Democracy Today and Tomorrow - Beneš being one of the few political scientists ever to become head of state. He wrote a thesis about political parties in 1913. Woodrow Wilson comes to mind as another President-politolog). Havel’s writings both as dissident and President take up this tradition: his elegantly written fulmination against party government in his 1991 set of essays Summer Meditations, although not unprescient, was striking for the fact that it came when Czech parties had barely formed.

As conventionally used ‘partocracy’ refers not just to a vaguely defined lack of principle in coalition-making but to politicization of the state and/or party penetration of civil society by client-patron networks and a failure of representation. Both (especially the first) are problems in contemporary CEE, but the Sme article entirely bypasses these issues. More to the point, however, love it or hate, Fico’s rationale for forming a coalition with nationalist parties does have a pretty clear programmatic logic: the nationalist HZDS and SNS did after all his more statist (ahem, ‘social-democratic’) economic policies. A pragmatic power seeking logic of the kind the Kusý piece envisages probably would have led to the politically less costly option of a coalition of Smer with some outgoing parties of the right or centre. As for a failure of representation, Smer’s high opinion poll ratings suggests that such principal-agent problems are not bugging the median Slovak voter, whom seems to feel represented rather well.

All in the all, the problem seems to be that Slovak liberal commentators don’t like Smer and their Czech equivalents dislike both major parties of left and right. I think I share these dislikes, But they would probably do well to set out why, rather than dressing things up as a unique crisis of post-communist democracy complete with ill fitting notions of ‘partocracy’.

Slovakia 15 Years On - or how we learned to stop worrying and love populism

Somehow without quite realising I agreed to co-organise a one day conference at SSEES on Slovakia 15 Years On. However, with the help of the British Czech and Slovak Association, the Slovak Embassy and colleagues from SSEES and elsewhere, this turns out to be a whole lot less onerous that I had feared and on the day the event itself both interesting and successful and we are even lucky enough to get a keynote address from the current Slovak Ambassador to the UK, Juraj Zervan.

The ambassador, suffering (like me) from hay fever, reviews Slovakia’s development as a small Central European nation bringing it up to date with a discussion of the current ‘dynamic and stable’ government, which he says is building upon earlier reforms while developing a less passive foreign policy than the previous government and not losing sight of the social side of economic development. My scribbled notes also say that he stressed the importance of using state monopolies to forward the development of the economy, but it is not clear (at least from my notes whether this means using existing state holdings, or actively developing them.

Over lunch I hear less sanguine views about the current government from others: it has no real interest in foreign policy and is mainly interested consolidating its domestic position (very successfully so far) in controlling the finances of ministries and doing advantageous deals with the Russians over gas without much of an eye to longer term energy security. On the other hand, Tomáš Valášek of the Centre for European Reform reminds us the afternoon session, Slovakia has an excellent corps of EU-minded diplomats and previous Slovak governments’ focus in democracy promotion in SE Europe (while successful) overlooked the question of Ukraine, whose future Slovakia a more direct interest in as far as its own security is concerned.

The rest of the politics session centres on the question of populism in Slovak politics. As Tim Haughton notes, this is less related to the EU, whose influence on domestic politics is somewhat tangential and ad hoc than the general trend of democratic politics across Europe to ‘go populist’. As Kevin Deegan-Krause explains in a presentation that is theoretical, accessible and witty, populists appeal tend to move around the political landscape depending on who is in power (and part of the establishment) and who is not and can use various bits of kit from the toolbox of populists appeals (there are many). Holding government office tends to wear down populist lustre and new parties therefore do best as populist insurgents. The big exception to this rule, is of course, Fico’s Smer, which has bucked the trend and remained popular and populist in office. The reason, as Karen Henderson highlighted, in her presentation on the disarray of the Slovak opposition, is that populist parties reflect social and electoral demand. It matters little that the opposition can depict Fico as a semi-democratic ‘Mečiar lite’ (my phrase, not hers) and win international support, when they lack any coherent unifying political project - either for themselves or society - and Slovak voters are elsewhere. Interestingly, although some Slovak officials and politicians can rather sensitive about discussion of the current government - seemingly fearing an outbreak of Fico bashing as soon as any Western political scientist takes the floor - intellectual undercurrents seem to be shifting towards taking Smer much more seriously.

The day it should be said also included a morning session on culture: presentations on the refraction of Slovakia’s transformation to a consumer capitalist society through fiction with an outwardly trashy and sensational edge; a clever and interesting sounding novel with a mentally handicapped narrator, which, again, offers a skewed, satirical perspective on Slovak society and reveals much more going on than first meets the eye; and the work of the Slovak composer Eugen Suchoň, the centenary of whose birth is rapidly approaching.

In the margins of the conference I also learn that Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico ate a lot of kangaroo steaks whilst a visiting scholar at SSEES in 1999; that a Slovak designed the dollar bill; that (allegedly) a fifth of Slovaks are of aristocratic descent and that some Slovaks may be allergic to the metals in the new Euro coins and will need to watch out for skins complaints when the single currency is introduced in Slovakia in 2009 (now a source of predictable anguish in parts of the Czech press - the fact that the Slovaks are ahead in European integration, that is, not the skin allergies). And for anyone who can't work out the puzzles of Slovak politics or culture, there is always the rather neat (and rather cheap) Slovak-themed puzzle I came across from Puck Puzzles, which illustrates this post.

Slovakia: Lecturers free to work harder

More interesting reports in Slovakia’s Sme - this time that the new Universities Law has abolished the 58 hours a week working time ceiling for the country’s lecturers. This is not intended to allow Dickensian exploitation, however but to fit with EU regulations. The restriction was originally applied to curtail lecturing in multiple subjects at multiple institutions. In future, lecturers will be governed by the general restriction on working time in the Slovak Labour Code- a normal maximum of 48 hours a week - but, in practice, will be able to work longer if they have two jobs.

Just the ticket

Slovak daily Sme reports plans to establish a public transport link between Bratislava and the Austrian town of Wolfstahl now that Slovakia has entered the Schengen zone. There were plans for a longer link to Hainburg, but they have been scaled back. I have heard people say that under Austria-Hungary you could get a tram from Bratislava (then Pressburg) to Vienna, but I expect that is probably apocryphal.

Slovakia: In a right mess

The woes of Slovakia’s centre-right Christian Democratic parties continue apace. Three deputies of the Christian Democrat Movement (KDH) have quit to found a Conservative Democratic Party (KDS), which, they say, will be more resolutely committed supporting traditional values and targeting financial support to (traditional) families. Meanwhile dissident members of the more liberal Slovak Christian and Democratic Union (SDKÚ) of ex-Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda (itself originally a breakaway from KDH) have been kicked out of the party for allegedly breaking resolutions not to air internal disputes in public. Their platform is a vaguer one of 'generational change' and renewal, outlined in a platform called Time for Change. The key generational change seems to be getting rid of Dzurinda, recently re-elected but seen as an electoral liability. Those expelled include several deputies and important elements of SDKÚ’s Bratislava organisation, where the party is strongest. Who know perhaps they will found a new party too? To complete the picture, we should perhaps add that Slovakia also has a further mainstream centre-right party - the electorally weak, but intellectually more influential Civic Conservative Party (OKS), which has never one parliamententary representation, who espouse a kind of Czech-style neo-con/neo-liberal fusion. The Slovak centre-right is clearly paying the price in opposition for its fragmented structure. This seem to provide cracks along which it fractures in the face of underlying strategic dilemmas: how to manage in a country with an electorate seemingly more inclined to the centre-left than centre-right; and what does being on the Christian Democratic right actually means in Slovak. The Czech right faced a rather similar situation in 2002, but with the crucial difference that the right is basically united in a single party, ODS, and that its long servingbut discredited leader Václav Klaus (finally) decided to step down.

Meanwhile, in the Slovak governing coalition things seem to have got rather jolly again. Vladimír Mečiar even recommends Prime Minister Robert Fico as Slovakia’s next president. Presumably, given the relative weakness of the Slovak presidency, Fico will resist this flattering offer. I suppose the idea of semi-presidential regime might distantly take his fancy, but he does not have the votes to change the constitution.

Do Slovak and Czech Christian Democrats have a prayer?

The continuing dominance of Robert Fico’s SMER in Slovak politics – ably tracked and analyzed by Kevin Deegan Krause in the excellent Pozorblog – is aggravating an ongoing crisis of the sundry liberal and Christian parties that held sway amid a blaze oneo-liberal welfare and labour reform between 1998 – 2006. The splits and rivalries, seem basically about personal ambitions and rival personalities, but are punctuated by calls for generational renewal (is there a Slovak Barack Obama in the house?) and seem to also have an ideological/politcal subtext centring on one issue: about how to confront the populist/national-populist left, whose poll ratings and (worringly) dislike of NGOs and desire to heavy-handedly regular the press have uncomfortable echos of the dominance once exercised by Vladimír Mečiar and his HZDS (now seemingly relegated to a bit part in Fico’s coalition government).

The core of the Slovak centre-right is notionally Christian Democratic - there two mainly parties using the tag, the Christian Democratic Movement (KDH), which has roots in the Christian dissidence before 1989, the more (socially) liberal Slovak Democratic and Christian Union (SDKÚ), formed as something of a personal vehicle for then Prime Mikuláš Dzurinda, although various neo-liberal technocrats seems to have hitched a ride with KDH too. The woes of the various stripes of Slovak Christian Democrats have interesting echoes in the current travails of the Czech Christian Democrats who, squeezed between powerful free market right and social democratic and communist left, have never had the whip hand in government and never been able to integrate liberal forces to broaden their appeal. The closest they came to a breakthough was in the ill-fated Quad-Coalition (4k) project in 1999-2001 when the two big parties of left and right were cosying up to each other. The exit from poilitics of the adroit Josef Lux in 1998 after being diagnosed with leukaemia (he died in 1999) finished KDU's prospects of being as much more than a niche party for Catholics in rural regions and confused centrist voters with nowhere to go. Despite good poll rating the fraught 4K project collapsed and split much like the Slovak Democratic Coalition, which indirectly it and spawned Dzurinda's SDKÚ

There followed faction fighting between more liberal (Bohemian-based) and more conservative (Moravian-based) elements in KDU; consequent frequent changes of leader (none, however, very personally commanding) and the lack of a clear strategy as to what Czech Christian Democrats actually stood for and whether they were of the left, right or centre (a perennial dilemma for small parties in a system with well established large parties) has seen the party's support dwindle to its core electorate leaving it hovering dangerously over the 5% threshold that spells political oblivion.

The directionlessness of the party was gruesomely illustrated by the sudden initiative of then KDU leader Miroslav Kalousek in 2006 to enter a Social Democrat-led minority coalition government with Communist support (it never materialized - he was sacked after an internal revolt) and its turning in desperation to newly elected Christian Democrat Senator and small town mayor Jiří Čunek, whose staggering popularity in the 2006 Senate election stemmed from expelling local Roma with chronic rent arrears from municipal housing in the town centre and re-locating them in the outskirts of town. Rapidly embroiled in corruption allegations stemming from his mayoral term(s) and squeezed out ministerial office (he was Minister of Local Development), but not the KDU leadership Čunek's small town populism has proved inadequate to re-launch his party. As highlighted in other posts the Civic Democrats - behind in the polls to the Czech Social Democrats (who, nevertheless, have not reached Fico-like levels of support) - are effectively marking time to see which of their minor allies, the Greens or the Social Democrats, will implode first and which they might somehow absorb to bolster themselves ideologically and electorally.

Ironically, KDU's long and detailed 2006 election programme, which, rather in the Slovak style, combined neo-liberal fiscal and welfare prescriptions (toned down to suit Czech tastes) as well as the usual social market, family protection, communitarian stuff was widely praised by experts as more realistic and better through through than the Civic Democrats' shot-in-the-dark version of flat tax-led neo-liberal reform.

And generational renewal? Commentators and politicians in CEE are always harping on about this, but it's hard to see quite how newer or younger will necessarily mean better. Such comments are, usually a disguised call for in political renewal or cleaner, better, more liberal government - amen to that, but even though there is no primaries system there is ample scope for new parties to emerge or young technocrats to parachute themselves into organizationally weak, elite-led parties. The Slovak experience suggests that many voters don't want renewal of this kind, but stability. Is the Slovak Barack Obama actually Robert Fico?

Slovakia: Empty lionizing of Dubček suggests social democracy lacks roots

A recent issue of Slovak daily Sme contains a report of a speech by Slovak PM Robert Fico (full text here) to mark the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Alexander Dubček, ill-fated leader of the Prague Spring and early figurehead of post-communist social democracy in Slovakia. As a man of the left, Fico, unsurprisingly has a positive take on Dubček whose thoughts he told his audience he and fellow leaders of SMER find alive and inspiring to this day and feel moral duty to continue them. Just what thoughts Dubček and his generation of Prague Spring reform communists more have to offer to contemporary Slovakia was, was however, left tantalizingly vague. Dubček, Fico told listeners, saw democracy as essentially an exercise in civilized dialogue. He was also a ‘leading figure in the European socialist movement’ and a humanist, aware of his responsibility for civilization, who believed in advancing knowledge through co-operation with scholars (s vedcami). Another speaker, Ivan Laluh, president of the Alexander Dubček Society , offered a similarly motherhood-and-apple-pie assessment of Dubček as standing for ‘humanism, social justice, decency and tolerance’ - which could apply to most European liberal, social democratic or (even) Christian Democratic politicians of any standing.

The awkward truth seems to be that, however sympathetically one might look at the tragedy of Czechoslovak reform communism - and it is something of a breath of fresh air to find more than the dismissal and amnesia characteristic of much Czech public debate on the period - it has little to say today. Dubček’s political inactivity during the ‘normalization’ period of the 1970s and 80s and short-lived political career after 1989 also amount to relatively little. So why the fuss? At one level, there is a simple a nationalist rationale. Slovaks Fico pointedly noted should ‘immerse ourselves more deeply in the thought of Slovak scholars and politicians, who have inscribed themselves on the consciousness of Europe’ even if - as in Dubček’s case - these are somewhat shallow waters. Dubček’s status in Slovakia is therefore understandably higher - Slovakia’s newest university in Trenčín was re-named Alexander Dubček University in 2002, an honour unlikely to be bestowed on any Czech leaders of the Prague Spring in their home republic.

Fico opponents might, however, detect a darker side in his comments that Dubček’s concept of democracy as civilized debate had not been attained in contemporary Slovakia as people were too intolerant and ‘too strongly intoxicated with freedom of speech’ which, translated, may mean there is too much criticism of his government in the media and society. Possibly, we should think back beyond the humanism and apple pie to remember the more authoritarian impulses during the 1960s of Dubček et al to regulate pluralism and debate so as to ensure they delivered social consensus around the ‘right’ result - something often overlooked in many accounts because the Prague Spring was progressive and democratically minded by the standards of communist one party rule in Eastern Europe. As Peter Siani-Davies’s excellent book on the Romanian Revolution reminds us the semi-authoritarian populism of the National Salvation Front in part had its roots in the technocratic authoritarianism and engineered dialogue to ensure Consensus of would-be communist reformers who opposed Ceausescu, as well as the country’s more obviously authoritarian and nationalist traditions.

In other ways, however, the vacuous lionizing of Dubček seem to underline the ideologically shallow roots of SMER and the Slovak centre-left. In the absence of a strong historic social democratic tradition, it has few models or historical figures to draw on not obviously compromised by association with the Stalinism of 1950s or the ‘normalization’ of the 1970s and 80s and ‘Europe’ no longer offers a comfortable template following SMER’s suspension from the Party of European Socialists. Moreover, as the current controversy over public remembrance of Andrej Hlinka awkwardly demonstrates, there are plenty of historic reference points for those of Catholic-populist-nationalist persuasion to fix on.

Education portfolio too hot to handle for Czech Greens

Who’d be an Education Minister in East Central Europe these days? Once a something of a political backwater, you now face an unenviable set of competing demands: of implementling EU-endorsed plans for transformation of communist-era education systems to shape up for the knowledge economy, putting a culture of critical, independent learning and foreign language learning in place of entrenched ex-cathedra methods, rote-learning and a bias towards technical specialisms; an ageing, over-feminized and under-qualified teaching workforce at primary and secondary level, chronically underpaid but with relatively good levels of union organization; unreformed teaching training institutions; and a need to expand and reform higher education, similar lines taking advantage of sizeable EU structural funds while your country is still sufficiently far behind the EU average to qualify for them.

The most spectacular recent casualty of this conundrum was (now ex-)Czech Education Minister Dana Kuchtová, one of three Green cabinet members, in the current centre-right led minority administration. Projects for the reform of higher education, which should have qualified for tens of billions of crowns of EU funds, were not ready and not up to scratch, leaving rectors of universities furious. Although such situations are not untypical problem across the new CEE member states, given inexperience and not sufficiently professionalized or qualified civil service concerned Ms Kuchtová seems to have had the misfortune to have inherited problems at the Czech Education Ministry just as they came to a head and to have mismanaged the crisis both administratively and politically, making promises she couldn’t keep and antagonising MPs in the Education Committee of the Czech Chamber of Deputies.

Lower down the education system in the Czech Republic, a new reformed curriculum stressing theme and competences (‘learning how to learn’), rather than the accumulation of knowledge in traditional subject areas is being rolled out. There are sceptical reports in the press as to whether current teaching staff have the ability and inclination to teach it as intended with suggestions that it is essentially a Potemkin repackaging of the old syllabus. Conservative resistance is also coming directly by the traditional Czech intelligentsia and scientific establishment, who see traditional teaching methods based on a canon of knowledge as central to Czech national identity (and one might add, the rather elitist culture of the Czech intelligentsia itself). In a telling phrase a letter signed by a host of leading academics including the sociologist, ex-dissident and feminist scholar, Jiřina Šiklová, warns in a characteristic phrase that the new reforms threaten to lead to the ‘degradation of the Czech population into an unthinking mass (dav) of consumers’ (Cynics might say that was possibly largely the situation already, which was why reform is needed - why do Czech intellectuals harp on with fantasies of imminent national decay rooted in lack of culture/morality/education so persistently?)

Meanwhile, Czech unions representing secondary school teachers are preparing once again to stage strikes over low pay, joining their colleagues in Bulgaria, who are already locked in acrimonious series of strikes. Here, government ministers see salary increases as potentially budget busting and linked to reductions in the size of the teaching force justified by Bulgaria’s rapidly ageing population and consequently declining school population, performance-related pay and financial decentralization and ring-fencing of education budgets. Figures reported in the Slovak press recently also highlight that the country’s teachers are amongst the worst paid professionals in the country.

The political demise of Dana Kuchtová, under pressure from both the Civic Democrats and junior partner in the coalition, the Christian Democrats, has also triggered a minor crisis in the Green party, offering a focus for party members discontented with leader Martin Bursík for excessive accommodation of right-wing parties and in effect hanging, Kuchtová, a former activist with the South Bohemian Mothers anti-nuclear group, out to dry. The EU funds fiasco, they argue was no worse at the Education Ministry than at many other Czech ministries struggling to download European funds on time, but served as a pretext for the two right-wing parties in the coalition to target and pressurize the small and inexperienced Greens. Kuchtová’s resignation was partly prompted by a desire to head off factional conflict in the party.

Discontent is also mounting among some Greens about the role of the Green-nominated Foreign Minister, aristocratic and ex-Havel confidante Karel Schwarzenberg. Although his appointment was seem as a major political coup for the Greens at the time the government was formed, some Greens have, it seems, now worked out that Schwarzenberg is in no way carrying out a Green foreign policy but rather one informed by his own aristocratic sense of public service and Schwarzenberg family tradition. Clearly, the nation’s schoolchildren are not the only ones in the Czech Republic who need to learn faster.

Karolína Vitarová-Vránková, ‘Ekonomika a štěstí pro ZS’, Respekt, 1-7 October, pp. 60-1

Fico's SMER more acceptably unacceptable, say European Socialists

Meanwhile, the Party of European Socialists (PES) has ruled on the status Slovakia’s SMER, suspended from PES for entering into coalition with the far-right Slovak National Party last year. Robert Fico’s party is still not welcome back into the PES fold, but the reasons for its continued suspension has subtly changed in a way that basically vindicate's Fico rationale for entering into such an alliance. PES chair Poul Nyrup Rasmussen is cited by Sme as saying that the Fico government’s policies accorded with the social-democratic line of PES - indeed EUX reports one German SPD leader as effusing over the ‘the great progress and stable policies carried out by our Slovak friends’ which ‘stand with the highest European level financially, economically and socially’ . PES also seems to accept that SNS had had no substantial influence on Slovak government policy. PES was, however, still worried by ‘xenophobic voices’ from within the government, the loudest and most raucous of which, naturally, belongs to long-time SNS leader Jan Slota - so SMER remains suspended until a further review in February.

SMER and Fico are predictably fuming in public. But broadly, the upshot is rather favourable for the Fico view. It is seemingly OK for a European social democratic party into enter a coalition with the extreme right soprovided it is effectively managed and reasonably soft-spoken. Doubtless there is a deal of pragmatism here. PES has a strong incentive in retaining a strong governing party as its Slovak partner and probably feels that will retain more leverage with Fico in, than out. But, how long before Socialists in Bulgaria, Romania or elsewhere try Slovak model of respectable (more or less) red-brown politics? The Party of European Socialists website, meanwhile, seems to have nothing to say on the subject. It last news item is dated 2nd October.

Slovakia: open for business, open for immigration?

As Tim Haughton and Darina Malová point out in the latest issue of Slovak Foreign Policy Affairs, even under the lefty nationalist/populist government of Robert Fico, Slovakia is - thanks to pressures of key business groups and its low wage, high(ish) pattern model of integration into the European economy - very open for business. And, logically, but said unusually publicly, it is also open for migration, at least if you happen to be a Ukrainian with skills in the construction industry.

Consistent with Haughton and Malová’s stress on brute business interests as akey social determinant of government policy, a recent issue of Sme reports growing pressure from Slovak employers to open up the Slovak labour market to Ukrainian migrants on a longer term basis, revising the current system whereby most work permits for Ukrainians are issued non-renewably for only one year. Some business leaders even want the quotas restricting Ukrainian migration abolished altogether.

The shortages seem to be for semi-skilled labour predictably, in the construction, manufacturing, garment and agricultural fields. Despite the nationalist colouration of much Slovak politics, the potential growth in Ukrainian migration seems to be received with equanimity by most of the political spectrum with the key obstacle seemingly how quickly Ukrainian and Slovak officials can re-negotiate the technicalities of the existing bilateral agreement dating from 1994 (not very, is the answer there). The most revealing and interesting remark, however, is the comment attributed to Alexander Duleba of the liberal-leaning Slovak Foreign Policy Association thinktank that ‘It is in our interests to have Ukrainians here rather than people from non-European countries, who will pose a problem of integration in terms of culture and customs’. The subtext seemingly being that Slovakia should hoover up the limited supplies of suitably qualified, culturally assimilable migrants before other competitor countries in the CEE region do. However, as Ukraine itself has an ageing population and labour shortages of its own emerging in fields like the construction industry, I doubt whether even the most liberal open door policy to post-Soviet neighbours will avert the need for migration from points further East (and South).

Young academics to back Mečiar?

Even in its current much diminished, more moderate form Vladimír Mečiar’s populist-nationalist Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) is not known for its intellectual qualities, so it is interesting to see that it has just founded a Young Politcal Scientists Club for sympathetic adademics to advise and feed in ideas. The rationale, reports Sme, is to counter the heavy bias in Slovak political science community towards liberal, pro-market parties. This I suspect does exist, although ,that said, Slovak political science is of a generally rather high quality with less obvious and uncomfortable partisianship creeping in than (for example) in the neighbouring Czech Republic. It will be interesting to see whether this initiative develops and contributes to the modernization of HZDS, whose vagueness plus loyal base of voters remembering the bad/good old days when VM dominated Slovak politics may be an asset for future growth. In Croatia the broadly similar Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), for example, took Ireland’s Fianna Fáil as its model of thoroughly modern small country nationalism. HDZ founder Franjo Tudjman did, however, have the decency to die at a poltically opportune moment…

European Socialists may soften line on Slovakia's SMER

Slovak liberal daily Sme reports that some Austrian and German Social Democrats are willing to consider re-admitting Robert Fico’s SMER into the Party of European Socialists, despite its coalition with the extreme, Hungarian-ophobe Slovak National Party (SNS), or at least to take some steps to normalizing relations. Pragmatic reasons seem to inform this step: Fico, despite some rather paranoid sounding attacks on the media, seems not in practice to have steered a reasonable respectable course policy-wise and keep SNS at arm’s length. Essentially, it appears they are buying into Fico’s justification that such a coalition can be innocuous and indeed means of managing extremists. The fact that SMER is riding high the polls and is clearly not going to disappear as a dominant political force might also have something to do with it. Will it I wonder lead to a broader reappraisal about Social Democrats engaging with the darker populist inclinations of working class voters and others left behind by reform?

PES will review SMER’s suspension at a meeting on 4 October. SMER’s only strong ally in PES at a party level have been the Czech Social Democrats.

Slovak press sees Czechs as laggards despite latest reform package

Slovak liberal daily Sme assesses the Czech reform package of flatter and lower taxation which has, as expected, just squeaked through the Czech parliament - although the headline rate of income tax seems lower in the CR (15% falling to 12.5% in 2009; 19% in Slovakia), it points out effective tax rates are higher as both employees’ and employers’ health and social security payments are included in the Czech tax base. Slovak corporation tax at 19% is still lower, although Czech rates are set to fall to that level over the next three years, and there are no taxes on share dividends. Twisting the knife, Sme notes that the real problem is that there is no strong reform coalition in the CR as there was in Slovakia in 1998-2006. However, if the price of such a coalition is the left blasting back into power a few years later a la Robert Fico, Czech free marketeers might do well do consider whether they in fact may have some hidden advantages, although, that said, the current consensus seems to be that Fico, despite posing as a kind of Central European Hugo Chavez, cannot and will not touch the main pillars of earlier neo-liberal reforms and Czech politics seems polarized even before any really radical reforms have been passed.

Slovak pensioners unaffected by Labour Code reforms

Slovakia’s liberal daily Sme reports (4 July) that the country’s new (less liberal) Labour Code) passed by parliament will have limited impact on pensioners. The Code - seemingly in contrast to the Czech Republic - does not recognise the concept of a ‘working pensioner’ and proposals for restrictions on rolling temporary contracts for employees already in receipt of a pension were dropped after objections by the Ministry of Culture (controlled by the main governing party SMER) at the consultation stage. Those still employed who were past normal retirement age and paying into the state pension scheme will gain higher pension entitlements, but those already retired who take up employment will only gain marginally with much depending on what type of employment contract they conclude. Overall, the amended Code has been criticized for giving employees enhanced social rights and allegedly putting a heavier burden on (small and medium) employees.

Pensions do, however, still seem to be something of a hottish political issue in Slovakia as, the same paper reports (2 July), the left-populist government of Robert Fico is busy tinkering with the state-supervised private pension funds established as part of the previous government’s welfare reforms. The proposed new Social Law will allow transfers from the second pillar (compulsory individual private saving) back into the state pension system. This - combined with higher payments for employers, the self-employed and higher earners - is reportedly intended to bale out the state pension system

Never mind the Sex Pistols, here's ... Robert Fico

I travelled up to London on the train listening to an oddly alternating mix of Irish traditional music and the Sex Pistols on a cheap (and malfunctioning) MP3. This mix of lyrical national sentiment and take-me-as-you-find-me iconoclasm was not entirely inappropriate, as Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was in town - and (more importantly, if more briefly) was visiting SSEES, where as a Masaryk Scholar in 1999 he first set out the idea of founding the new political party, that became SMER – Social Democracy, now Slovakia's dominant party - The plan was create a new force, which could deliver reform of the centre-left without becoming bogged down in the old nationalist vs. liberal, world vs. Vladmír Mečiar conflicts that characterized Slovak politics for much of the 1990s.

Somewhat distrusted for his populist leanings even as a rising star in opposition, since winning the 2006 elections, Fico has acquired the reputation of being something of the Johnny Rotten of Central European politics and has attracted similarly dreadful headlines. Forming what The Economist terned an ‘iffy and wiffy’ coalition with far-right Slovak National Party (SNS) and Vladimír Mečiar’s declining ex-ruling party of 1990s, the Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) after last year’s elections, his party gained the dubious distinction of being the first member party to be booted out of the Party of European Socialists. Despite leaving much of the previous right-wing government’s neo-liberal welfare and tax reforms in place, foreign trips to Libya (where, as well as having warm words for Colonel Gadaffi, as did Tony Blair, he described the Bulgarian nurses and one Palestian doctor convicted on trumped up sounding charges of spreading HIV, as ‘perpetrators’ - much to the consernation of the European Parliament and wider EU for whom it is an obvious injustice and a cause celebre) sent signals that he was a bit more Chavez than Blair, as did opposition to proposed stationing of the US anti-missile systems in Poland and the Czech Republic, warming the cockles of President Putin’s heart on a visit to Moscow – savvier comrades in the Czech Social Democratic Party simply sidestepped the issue by calling for a referendum; and a visit to the Cuba Embasssy in Bratislava to celebrate the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Together with more minor signs and signals such as the BBC World Service suddenly losing its Slovak FM frequencies, the impression, fanned by liberal opponents, is of an emerging anti-Western, or at least anti-American, illiberal ‘Mečiarism lite’ out of step with the rest of the EU.

Fico in person, however, did quite a good job of puncturing this enfant terrible image and. unlike some politicians of a more liberal persuasion in similar circumstances, was more than willing to take questions and comments and argue his case. He justified the coalition in terms of stability and as the best option for getting key social democratic policies through, arguing that he had effectively cordoned off SNS and HZDS by having them in office, rather than keeping them out of government and stressed that his foreign policy was more European and less American oriented than that of previous governments. The Visegrad group still mattered for Slovakia and its European policy would reflect this. Overall, the session left me turning over some interesting thoughts about the nature of social democracy in CEE and its (possible) relaionship with nationalism, liberalism and populism, which distantly echo debates in Britain’s very own populist-cum-social democratic party, New Labour. Once again, as with home grown left-populists like George Galloway or Tommy Sheridan, I was impressed with an ability to put across position I was basically unsympathetic to.

Whether such political acumen is enough to shift his reputation as one of the bad boys of the region, indeed or more broadly to establish a pragmatic left-populist alternative of the kind Smer seems to represent as legitimate part of the European political landscape remains to be seen.