Komparácia politík voči národnostným menšinám vlád Roberta Fica a Vladimíra Mečiara na Slovensku v rokoch 1994 až 1998 a 2006 až 2010

The paper deals with minority policy in Slovakia during two governmental periods, 1994-1998 (Robert Fico’s government) and 2006-2010 (Vladimír Mečiar’s government). Political parties which formed government in these periods tend to be referred to also as national populist parties, because they pursue populist policy embedded in nationalist agenda. The goal of the article is to examine whether minority policy of Robert Fico’s government was comparable in this regard to that of Vladimir Mečiar. This is done by investigating their policies towards two largest national minorities, the Roma people and the Hungarian minority. The comparison focuses on two main issue areas: education and culture. These are assumed by the author to be most important ones from the perspective of national minorities. I analyse several sources, such as government programmes, minority strategic documents, and language, educational and culture policies, applying criteria such as content or financial considerations. As a conclusion, the paper claims that despite superficially similar characteristics, there were significant differences in both governments' policies towards national minorities.