July 17 marks the day of accepting the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Slovak Republic. Slovak Parliament adopted it in the time of the so called Czech and Slovak Federative Republic. It was adopted shortly after Vladimír Mečiar's party Movement for a Democratic Slovakia won the election in Slovakia in 1992. The subsequent and controversial three-time prime minister claimed that adopting the Declaration was the "qualitative break" for which Slovaks were waiting for more than 1000 years. The very same day, July 17, 1992, the then-Czechoslovak president Václav Havel informed that he would resign from his post.
Martina Šimkovičová, Photo: TASR
