Protesters returned to the towns and cities across Slovakia in response to the NGO bill, which the left-right cabinet of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico pushed through Parliament last week.

“This legislation is written in a very unqualified way. What is most important is that it is motivated by the law from Russia from 2012,” one of the protest organisers, Marián Kulich from the Mier Ukrajine (peace for Ukraine) civic platform, was quoted as saying by the Slovak state broadcaster STVR.

He added that the bill “serves to suppress the civic society and civic rights. It means that citizens won’t have the right to defend themselves in the future as they will be harassed by the government's power.”

Besides the capital Bratislava, protests were held in the country’s second largest city, Košice, Banská Bystrica, Trnava, Lučenec and Liptovský Mikuláš, STVR noted, and included calls on President Peter Pellegrini not to sign the bill into law.

As bne Intellinews has covered, Slovakia's parliament approved the watered-down NGO bill after a chaotic, lengthy session at the National Council (parliament) with the slimmest possible majority of 76 legislators in a parliament of 150.

Although the original draft was watered down not to resemble the Russian-like foreign agent bill too much, the NGOs with an annual income above €35,000 will now be required to file a so-called transparency report, which will include providing information about persons who donated more than €5,000.

The country's NGOs will also be required to provide personal information about their bodies and members, and a failure to do so will be subject to a €1,000 fine and up to a €10,000 fine if NGOs do not meet the requirement after a prior request from authorities.

The original draft of the bill, pushed by junior coalition member, far-right SNS, from a year ago prompted EU’s previous Commissioner for Values and Transparency Věra Jourová to tell bne IntelliNews in Prague last June that the European Commission “will immediately launch proceedings” against Slovakia if the bill is signed into law.

She recalled that the EU has already begun an infringement procedure against Budapest, with the European Court of Justice ruling that similar legislation passed by Hungary’s government violates existing EU rules.

Although the approved version of the bill is softer, the opposition declared it will challenge the legislation at the constitutional court, and it is yet unclear whether Pellegrini will sign the legislation into law.

Fico stated last month that “the draft bill is based on European standards and has nothing in common with the bills about foreign agents, such as in the USA or Israel. The basis of the draft is that the public should know about the financing of the non-government organisations and who these serve.”