Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • Strategic autonomy
    • War in Ukraine
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

The Five Grave Errors Of The Slovak Government In The Refugee Crisis

Radovan Geist 28th September 2015

Radovan Geist

Radovan Geist

In Central Europe, and Slovakia in particular, the current refugee crisis reveals an awful lot about the prevailing public mind-set and the nature of our political elites. Few of these revelations are in any way pleasing. Positions held, and openly articulated, by politicians like Prime Ministers (Robert) Fico (Slovakia) and (Viktor) Orban (Hungary) shocked many external observers.

However, let us focus solely on the last (at this moment) stage of this drama: the EU Council of Ministers has used the “nuclear option” of Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) in a politically highly sensitive area. The PM of one member state – Slovakia – says that he will simply ignore that legitimate decision. “From my dead-cold hand.” He will deliberately breach European law, risking open conflict with the institutions and most of the other member states. Even the prospect of sanctions.

There are a couple of bad things you could say about Fico, but surely not that he’s stupid. He knows that playing with deep-seeded prejudices – against “the others”, which now means Muslims, against the “dictate from Brussels”, etc. – scores political points. He knows only too well that infringement procedures take a long time to unfurl. No decision can be expected before the next general elections. For now, that´s what counts. And, of course, he knows that between now and a possible Court decision against Slovakia, hundreds of things could happen.

Purely formally, Fico may feel happy. He is riding a wave of fear and prejudice (in fact, he is actively feeding it); the price will be paid later. Probably by somebody else. And maybe not at all. What he fails to perceive is the importance of informal relations. In the EU, you need to slowly build your political capital and invest/spend it in order to advance your interests. And from this angle, what the Slovak government did in the last few weeks was a clear debacle.

Not because it was outvoted in the Council. Countries are usually trying to avoid it, but sometimes it happens – they use their legitimate right to oppose the majority. Much worse is the way it happened in this case. Thanks to five grave mistakes committed by the Slovak government.


Our job is keeping you informed!


Subscribe to our free newsletter and stay up to date with the latest Social Europe content. We will never send you spam and you can unsubscribe anytime.

Sign up here

First, the government largely underestimated the seriousness of the situation. At the start, Fico probably hoped that he could take a free ride on the backs of those unfortunate Syrians. The European Commission would propose quotas, but after some ado the whole thing would end up just like the proposal to re-distribute 40,000 refugees. No quotas, and we are on the winning side. However, the sheer number of people fleeing war and misery in the Middle East and Africa, a boiling crisis in Hungary, rapid developments in Germany, Austria, etc. have raised the stakes. Quotas in themselves might be secondary for an overall, general solution to the refugee crisis, but they´ve become highly important symbolically. After all, their critics – including Fico himself – largely contributed to that when they painted quotas as a substantial threat to national security and cultural identity (whatever that means).

And here lies the second mistake of PM Fico (enthusiastically assisted by his interior minister Robert Kalinak, sometimes spoken of as Fico´s successor). Openly articulated, radical positions have put them into a situation with virtually no room for manoeuvre and future compromise. Orbán might be the main European villain, but Slovak representatives came second to him in more ways than one. Using “Muslim” as a synonym for “dangerous, inadaptable and unwanted” is something you´d expect from the extremist Right, not the moderate Centre-left. The eyes of European Socialists must have been popping out of their heads. And they were. Gianni Pittella (S&D President) called for suspending Smer (the Slovak Centre-left party of PM Fico) from the Party of European Socialists and invited Fico to explain his views, which “embarrass the progressive family”.

The situation was made even worse by the third mistake – the Slovak government has failed to anticipate the developing positions of other states. Opponents of quotas were gradually abandoning the field of battle. First, the wavering French and Spaniards. Then the Baltic countries, which had rightly assessed that soon they could themselves need some European solidarity. At the last moment, Poland u-turned. What remained was a strange, shrunken group of “trouble-makers”.

And here comes the fourth mistake – the Slovak government was unable to defend its position with credible arguments. It claimed a right to choose refugees based on their religion – an awful proposition in 21st century Europe. It tried to counter with the ridiculous argument that we cannot keep these people in Slovakia when they want to go to Germany. But first of all, it did not offer any real alternative. A voluntary approach? That did not work, not even for ‘just’ 40,000. Solving the “roots of the crisis”? Brilliant. Maybe the Slovak PM has somewhere up his sleeve a plan for ending the war in Syria (and Afghanistan, Libya…). But even that would hardly help the tens of thousands trapped behind the Hungarian barbed-wire wall. Those unfortunate human beings who will soon start to freeze by roadsides and in fields.

The final mistake was not just grave. It was virtually fatal. Fico´s government wasted political capital on an issue which has nothing to do with our interests and priorities in the EU. It has “bravely” defended the country from 1,500 wretched war refugees. And in doing so, it has assisted in dismantling one of the pillars of European integration: free movement of people. It has demonstrated a boorish narrow-minded egotism at a time when a growing number of voices in the “old Europe” are asserting that the time has come to purge the common European home of those newcomers who are crudely mistaking it for a cash-machine.

In the refugee crisis, Robert Fico and his government could and should have behaved entirely differently. If not because of social-democratic values – with these people, that would be a daring proposition – then in their very own interests. They would and should have avoided the five grave mistakes that will continue to haunt them.

Radovan Geist

Radovan Geist is cofounder and publisher of EurActiv.sk. A regular commentator on EU affairs in Slovak media, he also teaches at the Department of Political Science at the Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava. He holds a doctoral degree in Political Science and studied at the Matej Bel University in Banska Bystrica, Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the Institute of Political Science at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

You are here: Home / Politics / The Five Grave Errors Of The Slovak Government In The Refugee Crisis

Most Popular Posts

Visentini,ITUC,Qatar,Fight Impunity,50,000 Visentini, ‘Fight Impunity’, the ITUC and QatarFrank Hoffer
Russian soldiers' mothers,war,Ukraine The Ukraine war and Russian soldiers’ mothersJennifer Mathers and Natasha Danilova
IGU,documents,International Gas Union,lobby,lobbying,sustainable finance taxonomy,green gas,EU,COP ‘Gaslighting’ Europe on fossil fuelsFaye Holder
Schengen,Fortress Europe,Romania,Bulgaria Romania and Bulgaria stuck in EU’s second tierMagdalena Ulceluse
income inequality,inequality,Gini,1 per cent,elephant chart,elephant Global income inequality: time to revise the elephantBranko Milanovic

Most Recent Posts

transition,deindustrialisation,degradation,environment Europe’s industry and the ecological transitionCharlotte Bez and Lorenzo Feltrin
central and eastern Europe,unions,recognition Social dialogue in central and eastern EuropeMartin Myant
women soldiers,Ukraine Ukraine war: attitudes changing to women soldiersJennifer Mathers and Anna Kvit
military secrets,World Trade Organization,WTO,NATO,intellectual-property rights Military secrets and the World Trade OrganizationUgo Pagano
energy transition,Europe,wind and solar Europe’s energy transition starts to speed upDave Jones

Other Social Europe Publications

front cover scaled Towards a social-democratic century?
Cover e1655225066994 National recovery and resilience plans
Untitled design The transatlantic relationship
Women Corona e1631700896969 500 Women and the coronavirus crisis
sere12 1 RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

The macroeconomic effects of re-applying the EU fiscal rules

Against the background of the European Commission's reform plans for the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), this policy brief uses the macroeconometric multi-country model NiGEM to simulate the macroeconomic implications of the most relevant reform options from 2024 onwards. Next to a return to the existing and unreformed rules, the most prominent options include an expenditure rule linked to a debt anchor.

Our results for the euro area and its four biggest economies—France, Italy, Germany and Spain—indicate that returning to the rules of the SGP would lead to severe cuts in public spending, particularly if the SGP rules were interpreted as in the past. A more flexible interpretation would only somewhat ease the fiscal-adjustment burden. An expenditure rule along the lines of the European Fiscal Board would, however, not necessarily alleviate that burden in and of itself.

Our simulations show great care must be taken to specify the expenditure rule, such that fiscal consolidation is achieved in a growth-friendly way. Raising the debt ceiling to 90 per cent of gross domestic product and applying less demanding fiscal adjustments, as proposed by the IMK, would go a long way.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ILO advertisement

Global Wage Report 2022-23: The impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power

The International Labour Organization's Global Wage Report is a key reference on wages and wage inequality for the academic community and policy-makers around the world.

This eighth edition of the report, The Impact of inflation and COVID-19 on wages and purchasing power, examines the evolution of real wages, giving a unique picture of wage trends globally and by region. The report includes evidence on how wages have evolved through the COVID-19 crisis as well as how the current inflationary context is biting into real wage growth in most regions of the world. The report shows that for the first time in the 21st century real wage growth has fallen to negative values while, at the same time, the gap between real productivity growth and real wage growth continues to widen.

The report analysis the evolution of the real total wage bill from 2019 to 2022 to show how its different components—employment, nominal wages and inflation—have changed during the COVID-19 crisis and, more recently, during the cost-of-living crisis. The decomposition of the total wage bill, and its evolution, is shown for all wage employees and distinguishes between women and men. The report also looks at changes in wage inequality and the gender pay gap to reveal how COVID-19 may have contributed to increasing income inequality in different regions of the world. Together, the empirical evidence in the report becomes the backbone of a policy discussion that could play a key role in a human-centred recovery from the different ongoing crises.


DOWNLOAD HERE

ETUI advertisement

Social policy in the European Union: state of play 2022

Since 2000, the annual Bilan social volume has been analysing the state of play of social policy in the European Union during the preceding year, the better to forecast developments in the new one. Co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the new edition is no exception. In the context of multiple crises, the authors find that social policies gained in ambition in 2022. At the same time, the new EU economic framework, expected for 2023, should be made compatible with achieving the EU’s social and ‘green’ objectives. Finally, they raise the question whether the EU Social Imbalances Procedure and Open Strategic Autonomy paradigm could provide windows of opportunity to sustain the EU’s social ambition in the long run.


DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Eurofound webinar: Making telework work for everyone

Since 2020 more European workers and managers have enjoyed greater flexibility and autonomy in work and are reporting their preference for hybrid working. Also driven by technological developments and structural changes in employment, organisations are now integrating telework more permanently into their workplace.

To reflect on these shifts, on 6 December Eurofound researchers Oscar Vargas and John Hurley explored the challenges and opportunities of the surge in telework, as well as the overall growth of telework and teleworkable jobs in the EU and what this means for workers, managers, companies and policymakers.


WATCH THE WEBINAR HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Discover the new FEPS Progressive Yearbook and what 2023 has in store for us!

The Progressive Yearbook focuses on transversal European issues that have left a mark on 2022, delivering insightful future-oriented analysis for the new year. It counts on renowned authors' contributions, including academics, politicians and analysts. This fourth edition is published in a time of war and, therefore, it mostly looks at the conflict itself, the actors involved and the implications for Europe.


DOWNLOAD HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us

RSS Feed

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube