Yearbook of Slovakia’s Foreign Policy 2018

Now that we live in an age dominated by slogans, rather than arguments, it would be fitting to begin this Yearbook introduction with a short motto. However, it is impossible to characterize a whole year in international affairs in one word. Or even in one sentence. Especially a year such as 2018 was.

In Slovakia 2018 was a year of anniversaries that reminded us of the roots of our statehood as well as the events that undermined it in the course of the twentieth century.

But it was also a year in which a terrible crime reminded us about the strange power of the fateful “8” in our nation’s history and led to civic mobilization. Many important questions about our society were raised. In international affairs one could describe 2018 as a year in which we went one step forward and two steps backwards. As if a strange uneasiness permeated the whole system of international affairs, dominated by a lack of trust not only in each other, but also in the rules and institutions that we have jointly created to govern international affairs…(M. Lajčák)