On Wednesday, Slovak parliament approved the Defence Cooperation Agreement between Slovakia and the USA. 79 MPs out of 140 present voted in favour, 60 voted against. The agreement still needs to be ratified by the Slovak President. The Slovak Republic and the United States signed the defence cooperation agreement last week in Washington. The agreement is to allow the US armed forces to use the military airports Malacky-Kuchyňa and Sliač, or other agreed facilities and premises. The agreement should be valid for ten years.
Parliament adjourned its debate on the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) with the United States by 11 a.m. on Wednesday due to obstructions on Tuesday by far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia lawmakers. Far right opposition MPs Stanislav Mizik and Marian Kotleba played the sound of a siren during a speech delivered by coalition MP Peter Osusky, while other far right party members occupied the speaker's rostrum. There were several interruptions during the day, which prompted House Chair Boris Kollar to convene a session repeatedly.
Opposition far right People’s Party Our Slovakia MPs Peter Krupa and Andrej Medvecky, brandishing a Slovak flag, decided to block the podium in the chamber before the session even started, despite the fact that Kollar had expelled them for not wearing face masks.
Coalition Freedom and Solidarity MPs Jana Bitto Ciganikova and Miroslav Ziak, carrying a Ukrainian flag, decided to confront the far right MPs at the podium. The stand-off resulted in a minor skirmish in which the two sides threw water on each other.
As Krupa and Medvecky were still blocking access to the podium for speakers, Defence Minister Jaroslav Nad tried to pitch the agreement from his own seat in the chamber. His speech, however, was interrupted by jeering from opposition MPs as well as People’s Party Our Slovakia head Marian Kotleba, who moved close to Nad so that he could interrupt him in person. As a result, the parliamentary speaker convened another meeting of the heads of the caucuses.
Ahead of the Tuesday session, opposition Smer-SD party head Robert Fico said that the party’s MPs won’t support the Agreement, adding that he wants MPs to hold the vote on the document "by acclamation", announcing whether they are voting for or against the agreement in front of a camera. Fico explained that this was the method used in 1992 when Parliament adopted the Constitution. At the same time, he reported that his party plans to hold a protest in front of the Parliament building in the afternoon. Opposition MP and leader of the extra-parliamentary Voice-SD party Peter Pellegrini has called on the coalition to withdraw the draft Defence Cooperation Agreement from parliamentary debate, thereby enabling the proposal to be discussed in peace.
Also on Tuesday, Parliament turned down a request made by Prosecutor-General Maros Zilinka to take the floor in the debate on the Defence Cooperation Agreement. Moreover, the House rejected a proposal submitted by Independent far right MP Ondrej Durica to trigger a referendum on the deployment and operation of US military bases in Slovakia.
Source: TASR
