NEWS

Join Friends of Slovakia (FOS) at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library (NCSML) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, for a momentous Economic Summit on Thursday and Friday, May 2-3, 2024. This unique forum, co-organized by the FOS, will bring together delegations from the USA, Czech Republic, and Slovakia to discuss the consequences of modern […]

On October 2, 2022, FOS held a webinar on Jozef Tiso’s Leadership of the Slovak State During World War II and the “Jewish Question.” The featured speaker was Madeline Vadkerty, program coordinator at the Holocaust Documentation Center in Bratislava.  J. Luke Ryder, historian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, moderated the webinar.  Before moving to Bratislava, […]

Written by Dr. Elizabeth Guran, FOS Board Member The Ukraine War and its impact on democratic societies was the topic of the final Student Summit sponsored by Friends of Slovakia and its partners at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, and Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. Over 60 students from Matej Bel University, […]

Current and former directors of Friends of Slovakia, along with spouses and special guests, celebrated the 20th anniversary of FOS on November 17, 2021, at a dinner at the Slovak Embassy in Washington, D.C. hosted by Ambassador Radovan Javorčík. Earlier in the day, Beata Balogová, editor-in-chief of the Slovak daily SME, delivered the 2021 Czech […]

The German Marshall Fund of the United States and the Embassy of Slovakia to the United States hosted a conversation with Karen Donfried, President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and Ivan Korčok, foreign minister of the Republic of Slovakia, on Slovakia’s emerging leading voice in Europe, including in the European Union […]

Ivan Korčok, recently the Slovak Ambassador to the U.S., has been appointed Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic in the cabinet of the new Slovak government led by Prime Minister Igor Matovič. The February 29 parliamentary elections saw the rise of Matovič’s OLaNO party, which was able to form a new governing coalition with three other parties. In the course of selecting positions in the cabinet, the SAS party headed by Richard Sulík, chose Amb. Korčok as Foreign Minister, even though he is not a member of SAS. He will serve as an independent member of the cabinet.

The recent Slovak parliamentary election results and prospects for Igor Matovic’s new government were examined in an April 28 webinar co-sponsored by FOS and the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), “Slovakia: New Government, New Challenges.” Jonathan Katz, Senior Fellow with GMF, moderated the panel. Summary Dr. Kevin Deegan-Krause of Wayne State University […]

FOS Board members and others in the Washington foreign policy and Slovak-interest communities participated in a roundtable featuring former Slovak Ambassador Martin Bútora and his spouse, sociologist Dr. Zora Bútorová.  The ambassadorial couple served in Washington, DC from 1999-2003 and had a significant impact on Slovak-U.S. relations, as well as opening Slovakia’s new embassy building […]

The German Marshall Fund organized a roundtable discussion on September 21, 2018, in Washington, DC, titled “Trends in Central Europe: Addressing Liberal Democracy.” The former Slovak Ambassador to the U.S., Rastislav Káčer, who served from 2003-2008, was the main speaker at the event. Currently, Amb. Káčer is the Chairman of GLOBSEC, a non-governmental organization that […]

On November 13, 2017, Pavol Demeš, a renowned Slovak expert on international relations and civil society, gave a talk titled “Slovakia and the United States: The Ties that Bind” at the Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Washington D.C. The event was co-sponsored by Friends of Slovakia (FOS) and the Slovak Republic Embassy. The audience […]