SLOVAKIA:Slovakian president Ivan Gasparovic speaks to Daniel McLaughlinin Bratislava on the eve of his state visit to Ireland, which begins today
President Ivan Gasparovic has rejected accusations that Slovakia is sliding dangerously towards national chauvinism.
In an interview with The Irish Times, prior to his state visit to Ireland that begins today, Mr Gasparovic also suggested that Slovakia was willing to break ranks with its biggest European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation partners by accepting a delay to a decision on Kosovo's independence to allow for further talks between the region's ethnic Albanian leaders and Belgrade.
Mr Gasparovic meets Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the President, Mary McAleese, today, and will attend a reception at Dublin's Mansion House tomorrow and visit Cork on Wednesday, before finishing his visit that evening by watching Slovakia's football team take on Ireland at Croke Park.
He will be joined on his trip - the first to Ireland by a Slovak head of state - by a business delegation representing a country with one of the fastest growing economies in the EU, but which stands accused of moving rapidly towards the political margins.
The populist prime minister, Robert Fico, was widely condemned last year for forging a coalition with the far-right Slovak Nationalist Party, whose leader, Jan Slota, is notorious for making derogatory remarks about the country's large Hungarian and Roma minorities.
The Party of European Socialists suspended the membership of Mr Fico and his allies for teaming up with Mr Slota, whose reported tirades have included imprecations to flatten Budapest with Slovak tanks and to use "a long whip in a small yard" to discipline Gypsies.
Hungary's prime minister warned this month of a nationalist revival across central Europe, but Mr Gasparovic, a burly man with a bushy white moustache, rejected criticism of a Slovak government that is increasingly popular among the country's 5.4 million people.
"There have been many elections in our region recently, and we were one of the quickest to get a government: the Czechs failed for a long time, Austria too, we don't know how long the Hungarian government will last and Poland is struggling, not to mention Ukraine," Mr Gasparovic said.
"Slovakia has none of their problems and, in the political landscape created by the last election, the government we have now was the only solution.
"This government was elected by the people, and Slovaks are not a xenophobic or racist people. Some 11 ethnicities live in harmony in Slovakia," he said.
But Slovakia's reservations about Kosovo's bid to break from Serbia could strain ties with powerful allies like the US, France, Britain and Germany, which support a proposal from UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari to grant "conditional independence" to the restive province. The plan, which Russia has criticised, is likely to be discussed by the UN Security Council today.
Mr Gasparovic said US and European leaders must take responsibility for the legacy of their failure to protect Serbs in Kosovo from vicious reprisals from ethnic Albanian gangs after Nato bombing ended Belgrade's brutal crackdown on separatist rebels in 1999.
"As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Slovakia will carefully weigh all the aspects and not make a decision detrimental to either side," he said.
"We should do all we can to avoid disrupting peace in the (Balkans) area, so delaying the time-frame and a final decision on this is not out of the question. Both Serbs and Albanians should be invited to take positions that will safeguard peace in Europe."
Mr Gasparovic was allied for a decade to one-time premier Vladimir Meciar, whose autocratic ways angered the West and led Slovakia into political isolation.
Only after Mr Meciar was ousted as prime minister in 1998 did Slovakia get back on track for membership of the EU and Nato, and introduce reforms that attracted a surge of foreign investment, particularly from car manufacturers.
Dubbed the "Tatra Tiger" after the country's highest mountain range, Slovakia's economy grew by more than 8 per cent last year, and the country plans to adopt the euro in 2009.
But unemployment is still among the EU's highest - at about 12 per cent, prompting many Slovaks to seek work abroad.
More than 30,000 are now believed to live in Ireland, and Mr Gasparovic plans to meet members of the Slovak community in Dublin and Cork.