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Slovakia - Foreign Relations (Notes)

FOREIGN RELATIONS Slovakia officially became a member of the NATO on March 29, 2004 and joined the EU in May 2004. Slovakia has been an active participant in U.S. and NATO-led military actions and a partner in the war on terrorism. A military engineering brigade on the ground in Iraq from August 2003 departed in February 2007. A 57-man military engineering brigade is present at Kadahar airbase in Afghanistan. Slovakia participates in a joint Czech-Slovak peacekeeping force in Kosovo. Slovakia is a member of the United Nations (it currently holds a temporary Security Council seat) and participates in its specialized agencies. It is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the OECD. It also is part of the Visegrad Four (Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, and Poland), a forum for discussing areas of common concern. Upon the division of Czechoslovakia in 1993, Slovakia and the Czech Republic entered into a Customs Union, which facilitates a relatively free flow of goods and services. Slovakia maintains diplomatic relations with 134 countries. There are 35 embassies and 26 honorary consulates in Bratislava.