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The article analyzes the party-political aspects of populism in the Slovak Republic. The structural distinction between the parties of systemic mainstream and populism has come to the forefront of Slovakia's party-political development. The aim of the article is to highlight the specifics of the phenomenon of populism, its forms and party representatives in Slovakia. Considering the emergence and electoral success of populist parties, there is a need to emphasize the complexity of the phenomenon of populism in the modern Slovak Republic. Populists do not have clear ideological attitudes. they use the maxims of various ideological doctrines, which are based on practical needs. The distinction between systemic and populist parties is becoming more complicated today, as their positions on a number of important political issues have converged recently In the process of post-communist development in the Slovak Republic there was a transition from radical forms of populist politics through nationalism and authoritarianism to more moderate tendencies. Populist parties in the CEE countries, and in particular in the Slovak Republic, are characterized by the following features: opposition of the elite and the people based on moral grounds, desire to act as defenders of the people’s interests; anti-immigration, Eurosceptic, anti-globalization orientation of the messages; low level of institutionalization, etc. The main forms of manifestation of Slovak populism are determined: social, national, charismatic, centrist, far-right populism. The article emphasizes that the key trend is the growth of populism in the election campaigns of Slovak parties and competition on the market of populist slogans. Protest calls, social demagoguery, and national populism are electorally perceptible issues that are being pursued by both the opposition and ruling political force. The parliamentary elections of 2020, which can be characterized as «triumph of populism», were an important stage for the development of the party system in Slovakia. The success of the populists and the defeat of the liberal parties in the 2020 elections testify to the crisis of systemic politics and democratic institutions in general, which poses risks to the stable development of Slovakia.

After the formation in March 2020 of a new government coalition led by Igor Matovic, the Slovak government has adopted the foreign policy concept analyzing the European agenda. The Slovak Prime Minister participates in several meetings of the EU Council and at the EU summit on July 17-21, 2020. Before his arrival in Brussels, the Slovak politician visited all the countries of the Visegrad Four. Both the meetings of the EU Council and bilateral and multilateral negotiations within the Visegrad Group had a pronounced «pandemic» component: they mainly discussed the EU instruments for overcoming the consequences of COVID-19 (EU budget, Recovery Fund and Next generation EU). The organization of a videoconference between the Prime Ministers of the Central European countries and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel on May 19, 2020, had a ve- ry positive effect on the satisfactory results for the Visegrad countries of the EU Summit. As the pandemic subsides, on the agenda of European Council appeared foreign policy issues, especially the Belarus crises.

In the current conditions of globalization, the importance of innovation is growing. Innovation is a key to sustainable growth, a tool to increase the competitiveness of companies, regions, states and integration groups, a means to address societal challenges. The European Union pays great attention to innovation efforts - f.e. through the group-wide strategies of competitiveness such as the Lisbon strategy and the Europe 2020 strategy. The aim of the paper is to evaluate the fulfillment of the Europe 2020 national goals for Slovakia in the field of smart growth, to analyze selected issues of innovative development in Slovakia and to propose possible measures for its improvement. As the subject matter is extremely complex and multitangular, the paper discusses only selected issues and questions.