President Zuzana Čaputová (source: TASR)
President Zuzana Čaputová ratified the Defence Cooperation Agreement between Slovakia and the US on February 9.
Parliament greenlighted the agreement on the same day, 79 MPs out of 140 present MPs voted for it, 60 were against and one abstained. The President reminded the public that the text of the agreement had been negotiated by the current and also previous government.
“Today, all the conditions for the entry into force of the agreement on defence cooperation on the part of the Slovak Republic were met, just as 23 other member states of the Alliance did so without losing sovereignty before us,” Čaputová said, as quoted by the TASR newswire. “Including all our neighbours on the Alliance's border, including Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic States.”
The approval of the agreement was accompanied by the spread of disinformation as well as natural fears that needed to be explained, she added.
If someone compares the deal to the occupational contract after 1968, when the Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia, this is not an understanding of facts, according to the president.
The treaty does not undermine Slovak sovereignty, does not establish the presence of foreign soldiers or even bases in our territory without a decision of the government or parliament, as is still the case, and does not change Slovakia's current international obligations regarding nuclear possession, Čaputová said.
