Defence Minister Peter Gajdoš visits the military airport in Kuchyňa, western Slovakia. (source: TASR)
The latest dispute in Slovakia's governing coalition concerning an overhaul of military airports created conflict between two parties, the Slovak National Party (SNS) and Smer. SNS worries that foreign troops may be able to march into Slovakia, but Foreign Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák (Smer nominee) has strictly rejected the claim.
Here is an overview of what the conflict is about and what financial help from the USA would mean:
1) Why did the USA offer financial support to Slovakia?
The money concerned was to come from the European Deterrence Initiative (EDI), an American military programme introduced by then US President Barack Obama at the NATO summit in Warsaw in 2016.
The bundle of money, provided by the USA, is to help other NATO member states, mostly from the eastern bloc of the Alliance. Apart from Slovakia, the same support has been offered to Iceland, Norway, Hungary, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Malta, Luxembourg and Bulgaria.
The establishment of the programme is to represent a response to the annexation of Crimea and the situation in Ukraine. The government of current American President Donald Trump also backed the aims of the programme, allocating several billions of dollars for it.
