Slovakia underwent hearing in Brussels about state of rule of law

Five EU member states, including Slovakia, underwent hearing in Brussels on Tuesday as part of the annual dialogue on the rule of law. There were no reservations regarding the situation in Slovakia, Slovak Foreign Affairs Ministry's State Secretary Andrej Stancik told TASR following the session held by the EU's General Affairs Council on the same day.
Stancik confirmed that all EU member countries undergo this procedure. In addition to Slovakia, representatives of Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Finland underwent it on Tuesday as well. All the remaining EU member states could put questions to a respective country.
The European Commission every year issues reports on the state of the rule of law, including recommendations for improving the situation in specific areas.
Stancik said that Slovakia views the adherence to the principles of the rule of law as one of the EU's basic values, and therefore it approached Tuesday's first round of hearings in a "responsible and transparent" manner.
According to him, other countries asked the Slovak delegation chiefly about Section 363 of its Penal Code that is used by the Prosecutor-General's Office, as well as about the judicial reform and the independence of media and justice.
"They positively evaluated reforms in the judiciary and the progress in the fight against corruption. We stressed that we moved up both in the ranking of the fight against corruption, as well as in the freedom of journalists index," said Stancik.
"It's a standard procedure, there were no problems with us in this regard. As the European Commission has no problem with us, nothing similar to Poland or Hungary threatens us. There was no criticism from other member states, there were only some recommendations," said Stancik. (TASR)