PM Says Slovakia Ready to Adapt to EU Rules

kia identifies with the aims of the European Union and seeks its place in it as a full member and is ready to adapt to the rules," Mečiar told an international economic conference. "This is our strategic and firm aim, but we have to be ready for the rules and the tough competition they will bring," Mečiar told the conference organised by the Independent Economists of Slovakia (MEZES), a group with close ties to his ruling Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS). In power since the autumn of 1994, Mečiar, his government and his ruling coalition have come under repeated criticism of the EU and NATO member countries, including the United States, for foot-dragging on the path to democratic reform. The European Commission in July ignored Slovakia when recommending five former communist countries and Cyprus for EU expansion talks. At its July summit in Madrid, NATO omitted Slovakia from the ranks of former Soviet bloc republics invited to join a first wave of membership talks. Mečiar and his allies have in the past sharply rejected EU and NATO criticism as biased and accused the West of using double standards in its assessment. But Slovak leaders have underlined that their basic foreign political strategy is to achieve membership in Western and trans-Atlantic structures. Last Saturday the EU blasted a parliamentary vote, pushed through by Mečiar's coalition, to ignore a Slovak Constitutional Court ruling that the house should revoke an earlier decision to expel a former HZDS deputy from parliament. "By ignoring the ruling of the Constitutional Court and thereby its authority, the Slovak parliament is creating doubts about its desire to to consolidate democracy and the rule opf law in Slovakia," a declaration of the EU Presidency said.