CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY COORDINATION TREATIES … was not very important for Czechoslovak citizens’ choice in workplace at the times of the federation. In many cases, the assignment of the particular insurance period to the Slovak territory was realized by legal fiction. The attribute of the performed work as being performed abroad is definitely the result of fiction while the federal Czechoslovakia was one country. This is completely different from the freedom of movement within more Member States in the contemporary internal market. The Czechoslovak federation possessed international personality in the same manner as a unitary state viewed from outside. The republics were therefore not entitled to enter into bilateral relations with other subjects of international law. This changed in the last months of the federation when the leading political representatives supported by general public opinion decided to dissolve the common state and to set a new framework for friendly coexistence of the two newly established independent republics from 1 January 1993 further on. To this aim, the two republics still under the federation during the last year of the federation in 1992 were endowed with international personality, which enabled them to enshrine the new conditions of cooperation with many practical aspects of legal and economic life into newly negotiated and concluded international treaties valid for the future. Therefore, the social security of citizens was also among the issues regulated by the bilateral treaty signed and ratified in 1992. The specific nature of shared history, the dissolution of federative state, and contemporary friendly bilateral relations also means that there are not many cases dealing with similar and comparable questions in other European countries. 5 Let us remember that the overall bilateral Czech-Slovak relations are quite special and very close. Still, after more than 25 years after the dissolution of the federation, many people do not consider Slovakia a foreign country at all. There is a number of particular favourable bilateral regulations going beyond harmonised EU standards, e.g. mutual recognition of secondary and university education. Both languages are western Slavic and are very similar. The highly numerous Slovak students attending Czech universities are entitled to submit their theses in Slovak while their entire colloquium is taught in Czech. On the other hand, although the author of this contribution speaks fluent Slovak due to her frequent visits to Slovak universities and scientific conferences, she can observe a declining trend of Slovak understanding and speaking skills among the youngest Czech generation born after the establishment of two independent republics. During the long years of federation while Czechs and Slovaks lived together in one state, it was actually of little importance whether the formal seat of an employer was located in the Czech or Slovak part of the territory. Another reason was the socialistic centrally planned economy where all the production factors were publicly owned without the possibility of privately-owned enterprises which are now crucial for our free market and open foreign trade economy. At that point the employers were mostly large state-owned enterprises and other public institutions. Under the socialistic regime, the state was in fact the only employer. It was then not uncommon that citizens of Czech nationality, born and residing in the Czech Republic, were employed in an enterprise having its headquarters in Slovakia, for various reasons and with little practical relevance. Moreover, the seats of the state-owned companies did not change very often.

5 KŘEPELKA, Filip. The imperfect dismantlement of the Czechoslovak Pension System as an impulse for rebellion against European Union Law. European Journal of Social Law , No. 4, 2012, pp. 282-298, p. 283.

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