Slovakia is a central European country and a member of the Visegrad Four alongside the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
Slovakia has an ethnic Hungarian minority of around 420,000 people, almost 8% of the population.
Robert Fico, a populist prime minister, opposes the EU's sanctions on Russia. But he has a pragmatic attitude towards Ukraine: Slovakia exports lots of ammunition to Ukraine's armed forces, and its businesses hope to profit from the country's reconstruction. Progressive Slovakia is a liberal opposition party.
The Benes decrees are laws passed after the second world war by the government of what was then Czechoslovakia. Under the decrees, the property of ethnic Germans and Hungarians was confiscated—and nearly all ethnic Germans and many Hungarians were expelled—in retaliation for Germany's invasion and for fascist Hungary's alliance with the Nazis. In 2002 Viktor Orban said Slovakia and the Czech Republic should repeal the decrees before becoming members of the European Union; both countries joined in 2004 with the decrees still in place. Slovak officials have recently refused to pay ethnic Hungarians for land expropriated for infrastructure projects, arguing the property should have been confiscated from the current owners' ancestors under the decrees. In December 2025 Fico made it illegal to criticise the Benes decrees, punishable in theory by six months in prison, though there is no sign the measure is being enforced. The law prompted protests among ethnic Hungarians.
Slovakia gets about 90% of its oil from Russia and buys lots of Russian natural gas. Along with Hungary, it is rare among EU leaders for having paid visits to Vladimir Putin since the invasion of Ukraine.
Slovakia is the world's most car-intensive economy: in 2025 it manufactured nearly 1.1m vehicles, more than anywhere else per head of population. The industry contributes around 10% of GDP, directly employs 170,000 people and accounts for roughly a third of exports. Nearly 400 firms serve the industry as suppliers.
Volkswagen, which set up shop in 1991, is Slovakia's largest private employer. In 2025 it turned out some 337,000 cars, including its namesake brand as well as Audis, Skodas and Porsches. Porsche invested around €1bn ($1.18bn) in a battery plant at Horna Streda, an hour from Bratislava, which opened in 2024; the batteries are fitted into electric Porsche Cayennes assembled near the capital. Kia, a South Korean firm, has its main European production base in Zilina. Jaguar-Landrover and Peugeot-Citroën (part of Stellantis) have had big operations in the country for years.
Volvo, a Swedish carmaker, is spending €1.2bn on a new plant dedicated to electric vehicles that will be able to make 228,000 cars a year when it opens in 2027; it received a government handout of around €270m. Production in Slovakia has held up better than in the rest of Europe, where output has slumped by over a fifth since 2019. The country's heavy reliance on carmaking makes it unusually vulnerable to shifts in the industry: cheap Chinese EVs, competition from other countries for investment, and the risk that global businesses will invest where returns are greatest. BYD, a Chinese EV maker, will soon open its first European plant in neighbouring Hungary.
Along with Hungary, Slovakia lobbied the European Commission to delay plans to introduce taxes or levies on Russian enriched uranium.
bureaucracy, n: A method for transforming energy into solid waste.