In late October, an EU member state quietly turned a valve that much of the bloc would prefer to see left shut. Slovakia has reopened what regional media are calling the “Russia channel”, reviving a Russian-Slovak intergovernmental commission and prompting an obvious question on trade desks from Vienna to Warsaw: what brought it back? Slovak coverage points to an answer with four wheels — and to an economy running out of places to hide.
The numbers explain the nerves. Exports account for around 90% of Slovak GDP, a share that leaves almost no margin for error when global demand wobbles, and the automotive industry is the cornerstone of the entire economy, employing more than 230,000 people. In a country of Slovakia's size, that is not merely a sector — it is the national operating system. When carmaking catches a cold, Bratislava runs a fever, and right now the patient is sneezing.
The symptoms are impossible to ignore. Schaeffler, the German automotive and bearings giant, is preparing to cut hundreds of jobs in Slovakia as the car industry struggles, with the reductions touching part of its bearing production. “Measures at the Slovak plants relating to part of our bearing production are planned over a four-year period, from 2027 to 2030,” confirmed Miroslav Janota, who heads Schaeffler's business across Slovakia, the Czech Republic and the wider region. A four-year glide path may soften the landing, but the direction of travel is unmistakable: even the suppliers that anchor the country's industrial heartland are trimming muscle.
The pressure is arriving from the east as well. A sharp drop in new-car sales in China's domestic market has sent tremors through the global industry, and Chinese automakers — squeezed at home — are compensating by aggressively ramping up exports to other countries. For Slovakia, whose prosperity rests on being an export workshop for the continent, a wave of competitively priced Chinese vehicles breaking on European shores is not a distant headline. It is a direct challenge to the business model that keeps more than 230,000 Slovaks in work.
