Anti‑Corruption and Integrity Outlook 2024 – Country Notes: Slovak Republic

Table of contents

• Contextual factors
• Overview
• Anti-corruption strategy
• Corruption risk management and audit
• Lobbying
• Conflict of interest
• Political finance
• Transparency of public information

Contextual factors

 

State structure	Executive power	Legislative system	Legal system
Unitary	Parliamentary	Unicameral	Civil law

Strategy and institutions on anti-corruption and public integrity

The Slovak Anti-Corruption Policy for 2019-2023 adopted at the central government level serves as the strategic framework for anti-corruption and integrity in government. The strategy identifies three priority objectives: 1) to promote and protect the public interest through reducing opportunities for corruption; 2) to improve the quality of the legislative and regulatory environment; and 3) to improve conditions for entrepreneurship. As of 2023, all strategic objectives have been achieved.

In the Slovak Republic, the Corruption Prevention Department of the Government Office is responsible for implementing the Anti-Corruption Policy in the public sector. The committee on incompatibility of functions of the National Council of the Slovak Republic monitors compliance with conflict-of-interest regulations. The State Commission for Elections and Control of Political Party Financing has responsibility over political finance issues, while a central harmonisation unit located within the Ministry of Finance oversees the internal control and internal audit functions. Competences over open data policy are shared between the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatisation and the Ministry of Justice. Nevertheless, in the absence of a legal framework on lobbying, there is no institution responsible for monitoring lobbying activities.

Overview

Greatest strengths	Areas to improve
Anti-corruption strategy	Lobbying - regulation
Corruption risk management and audit - regulation	Conflict of interest - implementation
Transparency of public information - regulation	Political finance - regulation

Anti-corruption strategy

The Slovak Anti-Corruption Policy for 2019-2023 was subject to intergovernmental and public consultations and approved at the central government level. It contains three main priorities, each with outcome-level indicators, although these do not come with specific target values. Implementation of the policy is supported by the National Anti-Corruption Programme, as well as other central authorities and sectoral ministerial programmes. The anti-corruption ministerial action plans are publicly available, as are monitoring reports that assess their status of implementation, but there are no central monitoring reports and as yet no evaluations of the strategy.

Corruption risk management and audit

As measured against OECD standards on risk management, which includes internal control and internal audit, the Slovak Republic fulfils 84% of criteria for regulations, and 47% of those for practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 33% respectively.

In the Slovak Republic, the Ministry of Finance acts as the central harmonisation unit for internal control and internal audit. It promotes methodologies for internal control and audit based on international standards and harmonises audit practices across the public sector. However, internal control activities are not reported to the Ministry of Finance, rather they are made publicly available and shared with the Committee for Internal Audit and Government Audit, where the supreme audit institution (Supreme Audit Office) is also present. The Slovak Republic internally audits 70% of its public organisations and implements 77% of issued audit recommendations.

Lobbying

As measured against OECD standards on lobbying, the Slovak Republic fulfils 25% of criteria for regulations and 0% of the criteria for practice, compared to the OECD average of 38% and 35% respectively.

There is no entity in charge of monitoring lobbying activities in the Slovak Republic, nor a law regulating lobbying activities, nor examples of at-risk behaviour in existing codes of ethics or conduct.

Conflict of interest

As measured against OECD standards on conflict of interest, the Slovak Republic fulfils 78% of criteria for regulations and 22% of criteria for practice, compared to the OECD average of 76% and 40% respectively.

Regulations include a limited cooling-off period for public officials who provided state aid or other benefit to third persons; mandatory submission of interest declarations for elected officials, members of the judiciary and senior civil servants; and the obligation to manage potential conflict-of-interest situations. The parliamentary committee on incompatibility of functions of the National Council of the Slovak Republic oversees compliance with conflict-of-interest regulations and determines sanctions for public officials, except the ones in local administrations.

However, cooling-off restrictions for former public officials do not apply to lobbying activities, and no data was provided on whether elected officials, members of the judiciary or senior civil servants comply with the regulations on submission of interest declarations.

Political finance

As measured against OECD standards on political finance, the Slovak Republic fulfils 70% of criteria for regulations, and 29% of those for practice, compared to the OECD average of 73% and 58% respectively.

In the Slovak Republic, bans are in place for anonymous donations and contributions from foreign states and enterprises and state-owned enterprises. Additional regulations include mandatory submission of annual and electoral financial reports. Although parties comply with the regulations on submission of financial reports, these are not all publicly available. The entity supervising political finance, the State Commission for Elections and Control of Political Party Financing, is not an autonomous body as it depends on the Ministry of the Interior for its budget and hiring decisions.

Transparency of public information

As measured against OECD standards on public information, which includes access to information and open data, the Slovak Republic fulfils 78% of criteria for regulations and 58% of criteria for practice, compared to the OECD average of 67% and 62% respectively.

In the Slovak Republic, responsibilities for the open data policy are shared between the Ministry of Investment, Regional Development and Informatisation for supervision of public access to data, and the Ministry of Justice for compliance with the Act on Access to Information. Nevertheless, there is no central supervisory body collecting and publishing data on access to information requests.

Proactively disclosed datasets include agendas and minutes of government sessions, consolidated versions of primary laws, asset declarations of public officials and the results of all public tenders centralised on one platform. However, ministerial agendas and salaries of senior civil servants are not publicly available.