Slovak economic diplomacy - practitioner's perspective in the times of change

Abstract

Slovakia’s economic diplomacy has experienced several institutional changes over the period of last 20 years. The recent one from 2011 has moved the management of economic diplomacy back to the Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, but the responsibility for foreign trade performance and foreign trade policy remained at the Ministry of Economy, leaving to both departments the task to develop a new functioning modus operandi. At the same time, contractionary fiscal policies started to set challenges to the foreign service that can be concentrated to one question – how to increase the performance with limited or even decreasing resources. The answer to this question is important because economic diplomacy forms possibly the most valuable part of the national export promoting system of a small open economy. The article focuses on main issues related to the contemporary Slovak economic diplomacy from both academic and practitioner’s perspective.