OPINION:
Imagine the government knocking on your door one day and saying, “We’re taking the land you inherited from your grandfather because, under racist laws from 1942, it should have been confiscated.”
It would be unthinkable in today’s Europe, yet something disturbingly similar is happening now in Slovakia, a European Union and NATO member state.
After 1945, the Benes decrees collectively stripped ethnic Germans and Hungarians of property. Many confiscations, however, remained unfinished because of procedural errors. Today, Slovak authorities claim to “correct” these historical mistakes by seizing land from descendants, not for anything they have done but solely because of who their grandparents were.
For decades, Slovakia assured its partners that these decrees had no modern effect. That is no longer true. The principle of collective guilt is being applied systematically.
Since 2019, more than 1,000 hectares have been confiscated quietly, often without proper notice or remedy. Many affected plots lie along infrastructure corridors or near major motorway projects, with a cumulative value likely in the hundreds of millions of euros.
Representatives of the Hungarian minority had long warned that confiscations were restarting, but their concerns were dismissed as efforts to “reopen history.” When the opposition recently highlighted the issue, the government responded with aggressive rhetoric and Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico’s Cabinet declared the decrees “untouchable,” framing criticism as an attack on Slovak sovereignty.
Nationalism now provides political cover for a multimillion-euro land grab that benefits the state and those connected to it.
No one is questioning borders or postwar settlements. The issue is the present-day use of wartime ethnic decrees to justify property seizures in a democratic state — something Washington should care about. The practice undermines legal certainty in a NATO ally where major U.S. companies operate.
If private ownership can be revoked based on 1940s ethnic classifications, investor confidence cannot be taken for granted. Meanwhile, the nationalist narrative surrounding these confiscations fuels polarization and increases Slovakia’s vulnerability to malign external influence, including from Russia, which has cultivated ties within parts of the Slovak political elite.
This is not a historical dispute. It is the use of history to enable modern land grabs. Slovakia offers a warning: When nationalism and legal ambiguity combine, they can erode the rule of law inside an ally country. Washington must not overlook a state-run confiscation campaign shielded by populist nationalism.
BALAZS TARNOK
Foreign policy expert, Hungarian Alliance
Izsa, Slovakia
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