The constitutional role of the President of the Slovak Republic in shaping the foreign policy of the Slovak Republic

This contribution will examine the extent to which the President of the Slovak Republic exploits her constitutional powers in shaping the state’s foreign policy. The text will compare the constitution’s nominal enumeration of presidential powers with their execution. It will mainly focus on whether the President can carry out an independent foreign policy within the constitutional limits or is necessarily dependent on cooperation with other state bodies. The central hypothesis suggests that although the President has significant constitutional foreign policy powers, the hitherto presidents did not execute them to the full extent. This discrepancy between competence and performance is caused by various reasons ranging from the hitherto presidents´ foreign language skills to the size of the bureaucratic apparatus of the presidential palace. From the methodological point of view, this contribution will combine the doctrinal study of constitutional law with empirical research of presidential speeches and press releases relating to foreign policy, the personal profiles and electoral agendas of hitherto presidents, and the staffing of the presidential palace.