I. Introduction-factual background
In September 2025, we witnessed a constitutional reform in Slovakia, which drew extensive attention within the EU member states and the EU organs. In recent times, this has rarely been the case, as the various member states have more or less adopted the principles of European law, and we have been dealing with a very smooth symbiosis for some time.
For someone who has been monitoring the development of the European Union and the law provided by it, the discussion or even the dispute about the primacy of EU law seemed at least to have calmed down significantly.
Nonetheless, mainly because of political developments, this discussion is reviving and reaching out to the initial one from many decades ago.
This is the exact framework in which the reform in Slovakia has come to the spotlight.
II. The content of the constitutional reform
To get more specific, on the 26th of September 2025, the Slovak Parliament adopted the proposal for constitutional amendment, which:
- states that only two sexes are recognized, namely male and female, with gender as genetically determined;
- restricts adoption to married couples, tightens rules related to sexual education and forces school curricula to respect constitutional cultural and ethical values; and
- introduces constitutional terms, which foresee that national laws, including constitutional provisions, regulating matters related to national identity and cultural and ethical issues, have priority over EU law.
Even at first glance, one can draw two basic conclusions. First, as described above, all the modifications are up to date with international political developments. Second, each one of them clearly conflicts with European law, more or less, and not of the same intensity.
III. Issues related to EU Law
The issue of supremacy between national and European law seemed to have been resolved, at least as far as the basic principles were concerned. Nonetheless, recent political and social developments have led various member states to revisit certain issues connected to supremacy and the basic principles of European law.
One could claim that the recent reforms in Slovakia are within the same framework.
The first issue is related to the conflict between European and national law. According to the Treaties, all EU legislative acts precede national statutes. In accordance with the prevailing opinion, this includes constitutional law. This has been made clear in the jurisprudence of the ECJ since the foundation of the European Communities in the 1960s (C-6/1964, Costa Enel). If one approaches the recent reforms in the Slovak constitution, they may conclude that there might be a serious issue of breach of EU law.
In addition, one should also consider that the reform refers to national identity and cultural and ethical issues. For some time, we have been discussing European identity, which is developing in connection with and in parallel with the national identity. It becomes clear that this synthesis is problematic in view of the Slovak constitutional legislator and does not provide the necessary guarantees for the national identity. Nonetheless, the European identity was formed and has developed under the condition of respecting each member state’s national identity and cultural characteristics. This means that the European identity intends to protect and support the national one.
The reference to ethical issues is also found in EU law, and experience has shown that it can be misused or even abused. It has an extensive range of applicable cases and must be approached carefully for this reason and by definition. In general, it may be confusing. Concerning this issue, the reform contains a mandatory curricular alignment with constitutional and ethical values and parental control over sexual education. These specializations of the reform make the concerns raised above even clearer.
The second part of the reform, related to the strict gender definition through the recognition of only male and female sexes, might conflict with the EU no-discrimination law. More specifically, one could refer to the principle of equality, where the freedom of gender selection is the ground.
Furthermore, the recent reform includes a restriction on adoption, which excludes same-sex couples. This may conflict with the provisions of EU law related to the recognition of family forms. Additionally, the family and equality rights established by EU law should also be considered here.
IV. Conclusion
While undoubtedly surprising and somehow out of time, the constitutional reforms have triggered possible impacts regarding the relationship between EU and national law. Given that they are very recent, one should wait and see how they develop. However, there are certainly some conclusions that may be reached even at this early stage.
The first one is that while those reforms may be legitimate under national law, they cannot lawfully override Slovakia’s status as an EU member state and obligations precisely because of that.
The vague terms such as “national identity” and “ethical value,” in relation to which the EU shall be measured from now on, pose a significant risk of being used as justification for discrimination or exclusion, which is not acceptable.
Moreover, and in a more general framework, this initiative of the Slovak government is entirely in line with recent political developments in Europe and internationally. The justification is ancient and has been handled by the member states in the early days of the European Union (European Communities at the time). This might also be seen as an opportunity for EU law and its basic principles to be measured and mark their ground.
Panagiotis Skouris
Assistant Professor of European Public Law, Department of Public Administration, Panteion University of Social and Political Studies, Attorney at Law
