When the Czech Republic unveiled an avowedly satirical artwork to mark the beginning of its EU presidency last January, neighboring Slovakia was depicted as a giant Hungarian sausage.
It was a stinging humiliation for many Slovaks, who have spent centuries struggling to assert their own sense of nationhood, first as serfs under the Hungarian Kingdom in the 19th century and then as the poorer segment of the former Czechoslovakia.
Slovakia complained about the artwork until the Czech government apologized. The Slovak artist Martin Sutovec drew a caricature showing the Czechs as beetles wearing socks and sandals. Other critics said it was an insult that Slovakia — the first former Warsaw Pact country to join the euro zone, in January — was being compared with Hungary, the economic sick man of the region.
The fierce reaction underlined both the insecurities that continue to dog the European project, and the ambivalence of relations between Slovakia and its richer, larger neighbor 16 years after their “velvet divorce” in 1993.
Slovakia, so proud of having finally bested the Czechs in some international league by joining the euro zone first, exuded all the uncertainty that still makes it so hard for Eastern and Western Europe to feel like a joined-up whole.
Even a well-established country like Austria can feel lorded over by far-larger Germany.
After the rocky separation from the Czechs, Slovakia at first languished under the authoritarian rule of Vladimir Meciar. Then it remade itself as a low-tax, investor-friendly haven in Central Europe, becoming the post-Communist darling of the former Soviet bloc.
The decision to join the euro zone was embraced in Slovakia as a canny move that would shelter it during hard economic times. Instead, Slovakia’s economy tied Latvia’s for the sharpest downturn in the 27-member EU during the first four months of the year, contracting 11.2 percent after years of strong economic growth.
While the decline was a setback and brought “I told you so” remarks from the Czechs, who have clung to their national currency, the koruna, Slovak officials insist that it is they who will have the last laugh when the global economy improves and their wealthier, haughty neighbors remain isolated.
Martin Barto, vice governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, attributed the recent weakening of the economy to a steep fall in exports to Western Europe that had hit the country’s large automobile industry.
A pricing dispute over natural gas between Russia and Ukraine in January also cut Slovak supplies and all but halted industrial output for two weeks. But, Barto insisted, the stability and political influence afforded by membership in the euro zone will ultimately prove to be a lifeline.
“It was a big psychological boost for this country that we were in the euro ahead of the Czechs and the Hungarians,” he said in an interview. “There was a certain extra satisfaction, because the Czechs have always considered us their weaker and poorer cousins.”
Nevertheless, businesses across Slovakia have looked on with growing alarm in recent months as a small army of Slovaks has gone shopping in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, taking advantage of the relative strength of their euros to buy things from livestock to cars outside the country.
Roman Guta, a 35-year-old Slovak distributor of dental equipment, lamented that nearly a dozen buses filled with Slovak dentists had recently traveled to nearby Poland, where X-ray machines, dental floss and other dental necessities had become cheaper. But he insisted that he would not give up the euro for one simple reason: “For the first time, the Slovaks are ahead of the Czechs in something,” he said. “That is well worth whatever sacrifices.”
The euro already appears to be giving Slovakia an edge in attracting foreign investment. In April, when the German automaker Volkswagen was deciding where to invest US$436 million to manufacture a new low-cost family car, Up, for the global market, it chose Slovakia over the Czech Republic. The venture is expected to create 1,500 jobs.
Andreas Tostmann, chief executive of Volkswagen’s Slovakia unit, said the country’s adoption of the euro had helped swing the decision in its favor.
“Because it eliminated foreign exchange fluctuation,” he said, “it brings stability and it makes it easier to do business.”
Some economists in the Czech Republic said Slovakia’s embrace of the euro had also given it a political maturity sorely lacking in their own country, whose government recently imploded midway through its EU presidency.
“The Slovaks have become a proud nation, and they deserve it, while we Czechs have become the grumps of Europe,” said Tomas Sedlacek, an economic adviser to former Czech president Vaclav Havel. “The Czechs were the model, but the Slovaks have turned this around.”
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US