This article analyzes the 2025 amendment to the Constitution of the Slovak Republic as an expression of constitutional self-definition within the European legal order. It argues that Slovakia’s assertion of competence in ethical and cultural questions represents neither isolationism nor defiance, but the recovery of constitutional anthropology as a source of legitimacy. Through an examination of the amendment’s legal text, historical antecedents, and comparative context, the essay considers how moral sovereignty may function within the pluralist framework of European integration.

The Moment of Return

At 11:08 AM on Friday, 26 September 2025, the National Council of the Slovak Republic — the country’s unicameral parliament — reached precisely ninety votes in favour of a constitutional amendment—no more and no less than the number required. The coincidence was strikingly symbolic. An exact and fragile majority affirming something more enduring than any political coalition. By this act, the Slovak Republic did not merely amend its Constitution; it reaffirmed the existence of a moral foundation beneath politics, a continuity between the ethical order and the legal one.

In recent years, many European states have witnessed a growing disjunction between law and the civilizational intuitions that once undergirded it. The Slovak amendment moves in the opposite direction. It transforms ideas long expressed in declarations—such as the 2002 Parliamentary Declaration on Sovereignty in Cultural and Ethical Matters—into the living text of the Constitution itself. What was once a statement of principle has become binding constitutional doctrine.

Reaffirming Moral Sovereignty

Article 7 of the Constitution of the Slovak Republic already contains provisions on entry into international organisations and international human rights treaty system, has been amended by adding two new paragraphs: (6) “Slovak Republic maintains sovereignty namely in issues of national identity, consisting notably of basic cultural-ethical matters, related to protection of life and human dignity, marriage, parenting and family, public morality, personal status, culture and language, as well as related decisions in the fields of healthcare, education, personal status and inheritance” and (7) Nothing in this constitution and constitutional acts may be interpreted as consent of the Slovak Republic to delegating a part of her rights constituting national identity”

The wording of these additions in Article 7 is borrowed from the Declaration of the National Council of the Slovak Republic on the sovereignty of European Union member states and candidate countries in cultural and ethical matters.  The declaration has been  approved by the Slovak parliament  as early as  30th January 2002. A similar declaration was approved the following year (2003) in Poland as well. Existing soft law in the form of a declaration of parliament has thus been promoted to a solid constitutional principle.

The term “national identity” refers to the wording of Article F in Title I of the Maastricht Treaty “ The Union shall respect; the national identities of its Member States, whose systems of government are founded on the principles of democracy.”   This wording has been transformed into Article 4 (2) of the Treaty on the European Union:  The Union shall respect the equality of Member States before the Treaties as well as their national identities, inherent in their fundamental structures, political and constitutional, inclusive of regional and local self-government. It shall respect their essential state functions, including ensuring the territorial integrity of the State, maintaining law and order and safeguarding national security. In particular, national security remains the sole responsibility of each Member State.

The constitutional amendment thus declared these matters to be a question of national identity, namely as part of the fundamental political and constitutional structures. National identity goes deeper than questions of linguistics or questions of horizontal and vertical divisions of power. The Slovak constitutional amendment made a statement that the legal implications of an understanding of anthropology are to be determined by the countries themselves rather than from abroad.

The Anthropological Foundation

The amendment’s coherence lies in its anthropology. Whether protecting life before birth, defining parenthood, or affirming biological sex, it proceeds from a single premise: to restore conceptual coherence between legal personhood and biological reality.

The prohibition of surrogacy, under the wording “agreement to bear children for others is prohibited”, has been inserted into Article 15, crystallises this logic. It rejects the notion that maternity can be contractually transferred or commercialised, asserting that motherhood is not a service but a relation rooted in the body and the person. The measure received international attention and commendation, notably applauded by Reem Alsalem, UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, and from Olivia Maurel, spokeswoman of the Casablanca Declaration, who herself was born through surrogacy. The crucial importance of this provision was emphasised by the visit of Olivia Maurel, spokesperson of the Casablanca Declaration who herself was born via surrogacy, a few days prior to the vote.

Similarly, the new Article 52a, “Slovak Republic recognises only the biologically defined sex of man and woman”, is not an isolated cultural gesture. It establishes that personal identity, as a legal category, cannot be detached from bodily reality. This restores a forgotten simplicity: the idea that human beings are embodied creatures whose legal recognition must rest on what is, not merely on what is felt.

Family, Parenthood, and Education

This anthropological coherence extends naturally to the domains of family and education, where the amendment consolidates long-standing legal and cultural understandings. The amendments concerning marriage, parenthood, and education reinforce this anthropological realism. The Constitution now explicitly states in Article 41  that the mother of a child is a woman and the father is a man, and that parents are mother and father. It sounds almost tautological, yet the need to affirm it testifies to the uncertainty of our age.

The same article has already been stipulating that Marriage is a unique union between a man and a woman. The Slovak Republic protects marriage in all respects and promotes its welfare. Marriage, parenthood, and the family are protected by law. Specific protection of children and adolescents is guaranteed as a result of an agreement between Christian and Social Democrats in 2014 struck by Ján Fígeľ. A similar stipulation exists in the Polish Constitution in Article 18 Marriage, being a union of a man and a woman, as well as the family, motherhood and parenthood, shall be placed under the protection and care of the Republic of Poland.

There was a second addition to  Article 41: a new paragraph (5) “A minor child may be adopted by spouses or one of the spouses who lives with one of the child’s parents in marriage, or by the surviving spouse of the parent or adoptive parent of the minor child. In exceptional cases, a minor child may also be adopted by a single person if the adoption is in the best interests of the child. The court decides on adoption.”  This exact formulation was taken from Article 100 of Family Law in the Slovak Republic. This constitutional amendment thus promotes existing legal provisions into constitutional text, anchoring an existing principle, protecting a common sense approach.

A third addition to Article 41 is the new paragraph 7: “The upbringing and education of children in the area of shaping their intimate life and sexual behavior may only be provided with the consent of their legal guardian. Education focused on health protection, physical integrity, and abuse prevention forms part of the general education of children in a manner appropriate to their age.” The stipulation reaffirms parental rights and responsibilities in the education and upbringing of their children, and gives them the possibility to protect their children from unsolicited interference regarding this intimate sphere.

The parents (or other legal guardians) are thus informed before any NGO or external entity enters the school and addresses these topics. The original draft also contained reference to State Education Programme, a document which is published by the Ministry of Education, and thus has legal force lower than law. This reference was abandoned during the legislation process.

These provisions echo the Article L in the foundation section of the Fundamental Law of Hungary, which stipulates in its first paragraph that Hungary shall protect the institution of marriage as the union of one man and one woman established by voluntary decision, and the family as the basis of the survival of the nation. Family ties shall be based on marriage or the relationship between parents and children. Human beings shall be male or female. The mother shall be a woman; the father shall be a man. The substance of these  individual sentences of this Hungarian paragraph can now be found in Article 41 and 52a.

 Equality and the Common Good

Amid these provisions, the introduction of the passage “equality between men and women in terms of remuneration for work performed is guaranteed in Article 36 may appear unrelated. However, such a stipulation is in accordance with the other provisions of the amendment. It makes sense only once there is a clarity of who is a man and who is a woman, and that there are but two biological sexes. The measure was proposed by the social-democratic HLAS-SD party founded by Peter Pellegrini, the current president of the Slovak Republic prior to his election. The inclusion of this measure confirms what has been for quite some time evident in the electoral patterns of the American Rustbelt: that the two traditions – one grounded in the Christian social focus on protection of the family and the other: a true social-democratic concern on the dignity of conditions at the workplace can be complementary rather than opposing one another. This provision echoes a similar provision in Article 37 of the Italian Constitution stating that Working women are entitled to equal rights and, for comparable jobs, equal pay as men.

A Cultural Constitution

The result is not a new political doctrine but a reaffirmation of common sense.  It offers conceptual clarity in a field often marked by interpretive ambiguity. A constitution that lays black-on-white principles that had until now not needed to be written down for they were considered obvious.

The amendment does not question Slovakia´s place in Europe. On the contrary, it emphasises those principles that had been implicit throughout the entire history of the European civilizational and are questioned only by those with a hostility to the European civilization.

It does not endanger the membership of the Slovak Republic in the European Union nor the rule of law. On the contrary, it draws visible boundaries, clearly lays out competences and prevents supranational overreach. It functions not as an act of defiance but as an assertion of interpretive boundaries within the Union’s constitutional pluralism. A Union that seeks to reaffirm rather than break the richness of our shared European civilization.

The Slovak amendment thus delineates a constitutional model in which moral sovereignty functions as an expression of national identity within the pluralist framework of European law.  Whether this model will influence future constitutional developments in Central Europe remains an open question. In that sense, the amendment does not merely define a national stance but contributes to a wider European debate on whether constitutional identity can safeguard moral sovereignty without undermining legal unity.

Mgr. Andrej Kolárik, PhD., studied International Relations at Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. He has served as Vice-President of the Christian Democratic Youth of Slovakia and is currently Executive Manager of Conservative Projects at the Ladislav Hanus Institute, a Christian conservative think tank in Bratislava.