A delegation of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) visited the Slovak Republic from 19 to 23 May 2025 as the first step in the preparation of a monitoring report. The visit was preceded by online meetings on 13 May 2025. During the visit, which was carried out within the framework of ECRI’s seventh country monitoring cycle, ECRI’s delegation gathered information on preventing and combating hate speech and hate crime and ensuring equal treatment and inclusion in education and healthcare.

The delegation held meetings with representatives of the national government, the Slovak National Centre for Human Rights, the Public Defender of Rights, judges and public prosecutors, representatives of civil society organisations and of groups of concern to ECRI. Moreover, members of the delegation went to Plavecký Štvrtok, where they met with representatives of the local authorities, law enforcement officials and health mediators. The delegation also visited two primary schools – in Plavecký Štvrtok and in Zlaté Klasy – where it talked to education professionals. In Bratislava, members of the delegation visited the place of the 2022 terrorist attack on members of LGBTI community and a recently opened community centre providing support to LGBTI persons.

Following this visit, ECRI will adopt a report in which it will make a new set of recommendations on measures to be taken by the authorities to address racism and intolerance in the country. The implementation of two priority recommendations will be reviewed after 18 months from the publication of the report as part of ECRI’s interim follow-up procedure.

In its 2020 report on the Slovak Republic, among other recommendations, ECRI recommended that the Slovak authorities develop and implement an action plan for LGBTI persons, in close consultation with civil society, which includes the objectives to raise public awareness of the conditions in which LGBTI persons live, foster better understanding of their situation, protect them from hate crimes, hate speech and discrimination and make their right to equality effective.

It also recommended that the Slovak authorities end all practices which segregate and discriminate against Roma women in obstetrics departments at hospitals and establish an independent committee of inquiry to investigate the scale of the past practice of sterilising Roma women without free and informed consent and propose a compensation scheme.

For more information on previous ECRI reports on the Slovak Republic, please visit ECRI’s country monitoring page.