Let’s set aside the minor detail that the new model was sold out elsewhere at launch as well, because Apple shipped only a few dozen units to Central Europe—which says more about logistics than about Slovak wallets. Let’s also set aside the fact that the prime minister’s cousin is probably not the most representative sample of the Slovak population. Let’s take a look instead at what the cousin would see if he were to head east or south from the shopping center.

Where the iPhone Isn’t the Main Thing

According to the 2019 Atlas of Roma Communities—an official government survey—there are 1,043 Roma settlements in 818 municipalities across Slovakia. Over two hundred thousand people (Slovak citizens) live in them. Roughly 650 of these settlements have no sewer system, and in about 460 of them, wastewater simply flows freely into the surrounding area. Six percent of the settlements’ residents do not have access to standard drinking water. And compared to the previous survey, the number of shacks has not decreased—it has increased.

The issue is not that people lack a water tap in their kitchen. The issue is that they have no access to drinking water at all. Where water is available, it is usually from a well with contaminated water, a stream, or a spring that no one has tested—and people have to fetch it with buckets and canisters.

The Public Defender of Rights had previously calculated that 185 settlements—just under a quarter—have no water supply at all, and 7.2% of households have no access to drinking water whatsoever. In Dobšiná, about 550 people drank water for thirteen years from a spring that tests had deemed undrinkable. At the time, the Ombudswoman dryly calculated that, at the current pace, full water supply coverage would be achieved around 2032. She also pointed out that the problem isn’t just the pipes, but money: even where there is a water supply system, many people cannot afford it.

And Hodějov (Várgede) in Gemer shows that this isn’t just a thing of the past.

Years ago, the ombudswoman pointed out that around 950 Roma residents of the village drink water from municipal wells that no one had ordered to be checked. Today, the army delivers water to Hodějov in tanker trucks. The village has no water supply system; its construction, costing 2.7 million euros, only began this past November. In the Rimavská Sobota district, nearly forty municipalities lack a public water supply; roughly twenty thousand people rely on their own wells, which are now drying up due to the drought. Nearly seven thousand households in Gemer and Malohont are without water. This is the other end of the same country whose condition, according to the prime minister, we shouldn’t complain about.

And it’s not just Gemer. As of the end of October, there were 37 states of emergency in Slovakia due to a shortage of drinking water, including in municipalities in the districts of Kežmarok, Svidník, and Stará Ľubovňa, and in eastern municipalities, people are carrying water from tanker trucks. Those who are worst off are the people who didn’t have drinking water even before the drought—and these are primarily residents of Romani settlements.

Meanwhile, the average income per member of a Romani household in these settlements is less than one-third of the national average. To afford an iPhone costing 1,600 euros, such a family would have to work—if they had a job—significantly longer than the Prime Minister´s cousin. Furthermore, statistics from the Public Health Authority show that 72 to 87% of reported infectious and waterborne diseases occurred in municipalities with Romani settlements. Here, prosperity isn’t measured by sold-out phones, but by water canisters.

Water as a Strategic Resource, Not a Right

And now for the legal aspect, which is perhaps the most intriguing part of the whole matter.

Is access to drinking water a human right? At the UN level, yes—but only partially. In 2010, the General Assembly, through Resolution 64/292, recognized access to safe water and sanitation as a human right, and the UN Human Rights Council subsequently confirmed this. However, General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding. One can also rely on the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights and its provision on the right to an adequate standard of living—but that won’t help someone in a settlement draw water.

The Slovak Constitution does not explicitly recognize the right to water. The Slovak ombudswoman must laboriously derive it from articles on the right to life, health protection, privacy, and a favourable environment. The Constitution does, however, address water—and that is the point. Since December 1, 2014, Article 4 has contained a paragraph that prohibits the export of water from Slovak water bodies across the border via tankers or pipelines. It was pushed through by Smer and 102 members of parliament. At a press conference at the time, Robert Fico proudly announced that the ban was clear and unchangeable. Water was elevated to the status of a “strategic resource.”

The Slovak Constitution thus carefully protects water today from flowing to foreigners. However, it does not protect citizens from never having access to it. Water enjoys constitutional protection in Slovakia; those who do not have it simply do not have it. And the tanker trucks that the Constitution prohibits from carrying water across the border are now transporting water to Hodějov.

By comparison: in 2016, nearby Slovenia became the first European country to enshrine the right to drinking water directly in its constitution. Yet even that did not automatically bring running water to Slovenian Roma. When two Romani families turned to the European Court of Human Rights, the court stated in its judgment Hudorovič and Others v. Slovenia (2020) that the European Convention on Human Rights does not guarantee the right to drinking water as such. A positive obligation on the part of the state can arise from the right to private and family life only under “strict conditions”—and the court found no violation.

And the European Union? The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU does not include the right to water. In 2013, the European Citizens’ Initiative Right2Water collected over 1.8 million signatures under the slogan that water is a human right, not a commodity. The result, seven years later, was the revised Drinking Water Directive (2020/2184), whose Article 16 requires member states to improve access to water and ensure it is available, in particular, to vulnerable and marginalized groups. This is a state obligation, not a subjective right that a person from a settlement could sue to obtain. Although Principle No. 20 of the European Pillar of Social Rights refers to access to water and sanitation, it is a political declaration. And for the sake of completeness: the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms is no different in this regard.

In summary: in 21st-century Europe, we have strictly binding standards for bisphenol A levels in drinking water, but we do not have an enforceable right for people to have access to any drinking water at all.

Populism as an Optical Illusion

Fico’s cousin has actually done some valuable analytical work. He showed what prosperity looks like from the perspective of people close to power: a 1,600-euro phone is impossible to find, and that is the biggest problem. Populism does not consist of a politician lying about numbers. It consists of choosing a vantage point from which only what he wants to see is visible—the parking lot in front of a shopping centre, a full plane bound for vacation, a sold-out store window. In the hands of a populist, an iPhone ceases to be a cell phone and becomes a statistic.

But from another vantage point, something else is visible: an army water tanker in the village square in Hodějov, jerry cans by a well from which no one has ever taken a sample. And a constitution that strictly ensures that no one takes this water to Poland.

Incidentally, the government already has an answer to this.

Minister Rudolf Huliak proposed this week that a single well be drilled in every affected village—“which would ensure that the village has drinking water.” One well per village, one iPhone per cousin. Both are apparently sufficient proof that we’re doing well.

Perhaps next time it would be worth the prime minister calling other relatives as well. For example, those who aren’t waiting for an iPhone because they’re waiting for running water.