On Wednesday, July 17, 32 years will pass since the adoption of the Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Slovak Republic (SR). Deputies of the then Slovak National Council (SNR) adopted it on July 17, 1992. It was at a time when Slovakia was still part of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (ČSFR), but there were already talks between the Czech and Slovak political representatives about the further arrangement of unions between Slovaks and Czechs. Based on the Act of the National Council (NR) of the Slovak Republic dated October 20, 1993, the Anniversary of the Adoption of the Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Slovak Republic is a memorial day of the Slovak Republic.
After the parliamentary elections, which took place on June 5-6, 1992, the winning political entities in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Občianska demokratická strana (ODS) and Hnutie za demokratické Slovakia (HZDS), agreed on mutual negotiations to solve the state-law problems of the then federation. Of the parties that reached the parliament after the elections, only the Slovak National Party (SNS) had the creation of an independent Slovak Republic on its agenda. The winning HZDS proposed the adoption of the declaration and the new Constitution of the Slovak Republic and the announcement of a referendum on the state legal arrangement.
The negotiations of the Slovak and Czech representatives led by Prime Ministers Vladimír Mečiar and Václav Klaus began shortly after the elections on June 9, 1992. However, they ended in failure due to different ideas about the form of a common state.
On July 13, 1992, the SNR committee dealt with the Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Slovak Republic and it announced that the document would be approved by a majority of the MPs. The MPs did not approve František Miklošek's (KDH) proposal for the parliament to adopt a proposal to declare a referendum on the withdrawal of Slovakia from Czechoslovakia based on the constitutional law. On the contrary, they supported the proposal of Vladimír Miškovský (SNS) that the adoption of the declaration be voted declaratively, that is, not with the help of a voting device.
The declaration was discussed in the Slovak parliament on July 17, 1992. The ceremonial meeting of the SNR was led by its then chairman Ivan Gašparovič. It was attended by constitutional officials, representatives of the Federal Assembly (FZ), the government of Czechoslovakia, church dignitaries and foreign guests - members of the European Parliament.
In the debate, Prime Minister Mečiar described the adoption of the declaration as a qualitative breakthrough that Slovaks had been waiting for for over 1,000 years. In the end, 113 of the 147 deputies present voted for its adoption, 24 were against and ten abstained from voting.
Three days later, on July 20, 1992, Czechoslovak President Václav Havel resigned in response to the declaration. He justified his move by saying: "Just as I don't want to become an obstacle to historical development, I don't want to be a retired official either." On August 26, 1992, Prime Ministers Mečiar and Klaus finally agreed on the division of Czechoslovakia into two separate states without holding a referendum at the negotiations in the legendary Villa Tugendhat in Brno.
Following the adoption of the Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Slovak Republic, the deputies approved the Constitution of the Slovak Republic on September 1, 1992. After its entry into force on October 1, 1992, the name of the Slovak Parliament was changed to the National Council (NR) of the Slovak Republic (SR). The independent SR was established on January 1, 1993.
(TASR)
