Slovakia’s government on Monday said its controversial law targeting nongovernmental organizations was “legitimate” in light of last week’s move by the European Parliament to investigate NGO funding.
Bratislava claimed its new legislation reflected a wider shift toward seeking transparency in the civil sector.
“The steps we are taking in Slovakia to improve transparency are not isolated but reflect a broader European trend,” said Simona Zacharová, the Slovak official responsible for the development of civil society. The government’s law “shows that Slovakia is moving in line with developments at the European level,” she added in a statement to reporters.The Slovak law — likened by critics to Russia’s “foreign agent” bill — orders NGOs to disclose information about their donors and introduces fines for those who fail to do so. The legislation was passed in April and took effect June 1.The European Parliament last week took a similar step, voting to create an official body to investigate European Union funding of NGOs. The move was seen as a victory for the right wing on the continent, which seeks increased scrutiny of NGOs.
“The European Parliament’s decision to establish an investigative body for the funding of NGOs from EU sources only confirms that transparency in the civil sector is not only a timely issue but a fully legitimate concern,” Zacharová said. “This is not an attack on civil society — as some critics have claimed — but a move to strengthen public trust through greater oversight and accountability.”The law is now under review by the Slovak Constitutional Court following complaints by opposition parties and NGOs, and remains valid pending the court’s ruling.
‘Fertile ground’
Multiple NGOs have condemned the Slovak law — with some noting that Bratislava is using the European Parliament’s initiative to further its own political goals.
Boris Strečanský from Platform for Democracy, a coalition uniting Slovak NGOs, told POLITICO his group believes “that these activities within EU institutions are formulated in a way that creates fertile ground for a complete distortion of their meaning in the domestic environment — specifically in Slovakia by government officials. That press release is a proof of that,” he said, referring to Zacharová’s statement. Michal Piško, director of Transparency International Slovakia, recalled last year’s report of the European Court of Auditors (ECA), which concluded that the EU’s funding of NGOs lacked transparency. The Slovak government presented that report as endorsing its own position.
“We already encountered similar misinterpretations and attempts to evade responsibility for passing a harassing law against NGOs in Slovakia last spring, during the media coverage of the European Court of Auditors’ report on NGO funding,” Piško said. “While both the mentioned auditors’ report and the current European Parliament proposal focus on improving transparency in the use of public European funds, Slovakia has witnessed repeated efforts over the past year to smear and discriminate against civil society.”Tomáš Zdechovský, the lead European People’s Party lawmaker in the Budgetary Control Committee where the investigative body will be set up, said he was concerned by the development.“If some governments or political forces want to arbitrarily interpret the European Parliament’s decision as justification for repressive measures, then it is necessary to clearly oppose that. Such an approach contradicts the spirit and purpose of our decision,” Zdechovský told POLITICO.The most controversial part of the Slovak law — one that labels NGOs as foreign agents — was amended after the European Commission warned Bratislava in its 2024 Rule of Law report that if it pushed ahead with the original bill, the EU would take immediate legal action. A second version, in which NGOs were called lobbyists, was also dropped to ensure passage of the legislation.
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