Slovakia must insist on the Treaty of Lisbon including Slovakia as well as the Czech Republic in connection with a possible exemption in terms of the provisions of the 1945 Beneš Decrees, said the Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry on October 18, the TASR newswire wrote.
“Slovakia is a country that succeeded in the division of the former Czechoslovakia and the Beneš Decrees are part of our legal system. The Treaty of Lisbon cannot provide different legal certainties to the two successor states vis-a-vis the issue of the Beneš Decrees,” said ministry spokesman Peter Stano.
Slovakia has ratified the Lisbon Treaty without reservations or supplementary requirements. The ministry says, however, that due to a new requirement on the part of Czech President Václav Klaus regarding the Beneš Decrees, Slovakia has “unwillingly become part of the whole process”.
Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Sunday that Slovakia may ask at the EU October summit for the same exemption in the Treaty of Lisbon as is being called for by the Czech Republic. TASR
Compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
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