Widescope of relations and human activities has been affected by globalization and increasing interconnections. These phenomena are also intensively manifested in relations with Africa in general, and, gradually, also in relations between Slovakia and individual African nations in particular. Despite relatively young Slovak statehood, the relations of the Slovak territory with Africa have been rooted for several centuries in history.
Modern Slovak diplomacy has been involved in African countries since the independence of Slovakia in 1993 and especially after joining the European Union in 2004. The European Union’s mutual interaction with the African Union brings new topics and possibilities for Slovak foreign policy, as well as commitments to contribute to the development of Africa. The benefits of Slovakia’s membership in the European Union are intertwined with the more effective formation of bilateral relations with African states and new opportunities for promoting Slovak interests in Africa.
Slovakia perceives Africa primarily as a continent where development aid and activities to support peace and security are implemented. An integral part of this approach is to obtain support from African countries for the promotion of Slovak interests in international organizations and to develop mutually beneficial business and economic cooperation, while it is also important to create prerequisites for strengthening Slovak exports. The share of the whole of Africa in the total export of goods from Slovakia is still low, however, the export growth index has the greatest dynamics of all continents.
Although Africa does not have a priority position in Slovakia’s foreign policy, it is a fundamental challenge for Slovak diplomacy to grasp African reality, and approach it beyond and above the basis of usual diplomatic stereotypes and to respect the potential and positive aspects of African development. The African continent today presents much more complex challenges than only the issues of poverty and security.
Slovakia is aware that there is enormous potential in Africa, not only because of 16% of the world’s population lives there. Africa is considered a promising continent with a lot of strategic raw materials that are vital for the world economy. Many African countries, apart from the Covid-19 and post-Covid period, have recently experienced dynamic economic development. Africa should be understood as a space of opportunities, where global markets, customers and employees of the future are growing, and where modern technologies are penetrating. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) project, if successful, will move the whole of Africa closer to integration and bring African countries closer together through trade, investment, and the free movement of people.
However, Africa has also its problems – rapid demographic growth, internal conflicts, terrorism, Islamic radicalism, and the negative impacts of climate change, to name a few of them. In addition to these phenomena, African “irregular” migration particularly affects Europe.
An important value criterion for Slovakia’s cooperation with African states is the stability of their political regimes, the level of their security, sharing of democratic values, good governance, and the level of their rule of law, beside their economic strength, the sustainability of economic opportunities, the implementation of reforms, etc. This is especially true at the present when the states of the African continent are destabilized by military elements and face the negative economic and social consequences of the war in Ukraine and the pro-Russian narrative.
(The article was created on the basis of a larger joint article by the author with former Slovak Minister of International Relations Pavol Demeš and diplomat Jozef Hudec)
