NEWS

Friends of Slovakia congratulates Beata Balagova, editor-in-chief of SME, for winning this year’s European Press Prize for Opinion for her article “How We Stopped Being Comrades”.  

“In our self-absorption over contemporary assaults on our freedom — political and medical — we in the United States seem to have entirely overlooked this seminal event which continues to shape our lives today. We should never forget the core lessons from that time — the importance of allies who share our values and the […]

On January 8, 2020 the United States Senate adopted a resolution (S. RES. 343) commemorating several important anniversaries in the modern history of the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic. The resolution commemorates the 30th anniversary of the ‘Velvet Revolution’ in the former Czechoslovakia, as well as anniversaries of the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918 […]

November 2019 marked the 30th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent events that brought freedom from communist domination to many countries of the former “Soviet-bloc.”  In Czechoslovakia, public demonstrations, spearheaded by student movements, sparked the relatively peaceful downfall of the communist government and began the country’s “return to the West,” […]

Katarína Cséfalvayová  & Simon Panek delivered the 2019 Czech and Slovak Freedom Lecture on November 13, 2019. This special double-lecture event lecture was entitled “30 Years of Czech and Slovak Freedom,” commemorating the 30th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which saw the return of freedom and democracy to both countries on November 17, 1989. Katarína […]

On Tuesday, November 12, 2019, a forum titled Velvet @ 30: A Legacy to Uphold was held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. The forum was co-sponsored by the Czech and Slovak Embassies in collaboration with Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.  The event featured welcoming remarks by Joel Hellman, Dean of the Walsh […]

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 […]

On September 23, 2019 the Center for European Policy Analysis held its annual ‘CEPA Forum’ in Washington DC entitled, Transatlantic Anniversaries: Legacies and Unfinished Business.  FOS, as it has for several years, served as a co-sponsor of this prestigious event, which represents the major U.S. policy forum focusing on Central and Eastern Europe.  Among the speakers […]

At a conference held on July 17-18 in Washington, the Atlantic Council, a major U.S.-based foreign policy think tank, and GLOBSEC, a Bratislava-based security and foreign policy think tank, announced a collaboration to address current issues focusing on the central European region. At the two-day conference entitled, The United States and Central Europe: Celebrating Europe […]

On July 11, 2019 members of the Friends of Slovakia (FOS) Executive Committee met with Ambassador Brink at the State Department in Washington DC to get acquainted and discuss her plans for the new post. The White House announced in March 2019 that President Trump had nominated Bridget Brink, a career foreign service diplomat, to […]