WGA 2020 | Slovakia | Main Actors

Main Actors

Question:
Who are the main actors that cooperate in WGA-like fashion in your country? At what levels do you see cooperation and coordination, whether in a formal or informal manner, taking place in your country’s dealings with external crises and conflicts?

Slovakia Expert

Tomas Valasek

Member of Parliament and Chair EU Affairs, National Council of the Slovak Republic

Tomas Valasek is Member of the Slovakian Parliament and Chair of EU Affairs. Beforehand he served as Director of Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where his research focused on security and defence, transatlantic relations and Europe’s Eastern Neighbourhood. Previously, Tomas served as the Permanent Representative of the Slovak Republic to NATO for nearly four years. Before that, he was President of the Central European Policy Institute in Bratislava (2012–2013), Director of Foreign Policy and Defence at the Centre for European Reform in London (2007–2012), and Founder and Director of the Brussels office of the World Security Institute (2002–2006). Between 2006 and 2007, he served as Acting Political Director and Head of the Security and Defence Policy Division of the Slovak Ministry of Defence. Tomas is the author of numerous articles in journals and newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, and the Financial Times. He has advised the Slovak ministers of defence and foreign affairs, the UK House of Lords, and the Group of Experts on the new NATO Strategic Concept.

Slovakia
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The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the Ministry of Defence (MoD), and the Ministry of Interior play the key roles in cooperating in a WGA-like fashion. Here, one should note that Slovakia’s development aid is administered by an agency within the MFA, so there is no equivalent to a department for international aid and development. Furthermore, the country’s National Security Council plays only a marginal role in crisis intervention abroad in addition to having no right of initiative and no real coordination role. Even when it does debate deployments, instead of genuinely pressing for a WGA effect, it merely serves to clear up any differences among the various ministries involved regarding the modalities of deployment.

In practice, fairly intense but informal consultations – mainly between the MoD and the MFA – usually precede deployments of armed units (as is discussed in more detail below). These consultations serve to discuss whether and how the proposed deployment serves Slovakia’s foreign policy priorities and sometimes to inspire other departments to get involved, as well. In theory, the aforementioned coordination council that manages the deployment of civilian experts abroad could serve to bring about a more comprehensive approach to crisis management. However, according to insiders, it does not do so in practice. Instead, the ministries tend to decide on their own who they want to deploy and where, and they merely use to council to gain the pro forma approval of other ministries.

Slovakia Report