Support for pro-Western orientation in Slovakia rises. So does support for Vladimir Putin

Public approval of the Kremlin leader has increased by 14 percent in Slovakia.

(Source: Unsplash)

Slovakia holds the distinction of being the only country in the region to record rising support for a pro-Western orientation, including EU and NATO membership, since 2017.

This stems from the Globsec Trends 2021 report conducted based on polls from March 2021 on a representative sample of the population in ten countries: Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia.

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“The only country with a clear trend in any direction is Slovakia, with support for EU membership gradually rising from 66 percent in 2018 to 78 percent in 2021,” the Globsec report reads.

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With few exceptions, long-term data indicates that geopolitical preferences - Western or Eastern - are rather stable among the researched countries. Two patterns are discernible from the longitudinal data in Hungary and Slovakia. Whereas preferences for a Western orientation have increased slightly in Slovakia since 2017, there has, conversely, been a slight decline in Western dispositions in Hungary.

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