Pragmatic squared. Post-communist and liberal, Eurosceptic and Euroenthusiast in one

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Pragmatic squared. Post-communist and liberal, Eurosceptic and Euroenthusiast in one

Photo: MARTIN DIVISEK/PAP/EPA

He wants to go to Moscow and perversely asks: “who will stop me”? He fears World War III, but says he is “for peace.” He draws post-war scenarios and wants the “four corners of the world” doctrine. He ran until the 2023 elections with an anti-Ukrainian agenda. What does Robert Fico's policy look like a year after returning to power in Slovakia and what has changed on the eastern flank of NATO and on the external border of the European Union?

“Military aid for Ukraine should be continued,” wrote the then president in October last year, a few days after the parliamentary elections. Slovakia Zuzana Čaputová. However, she emphasized that she respected the result of the vote and the fact that citizens gave victory to the Smer-SD party (Polish: Direction-Social Democracy). The formation of several-time prime minister Robert Fico went for victory, promising… peace. Or at least “no escalation” of the conflict in the east of the continent. The left-wing populist group officially indicated that war in Ukraine it is actually a smokescreen for the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Washington, but it takes place on the territory of another country.

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Zuzana Čaputová's entry from a year ago on the X websitex.com

The technical government, which was in power shortly before Fico's return to the prime minister's chair, decided to freeze the decision to provide another tranche of military aid to Kiev, respecting the fact that Slovaks gave priority in the elections to a political option opposed to the current policy. A year has passed. What has changed in Slovak politics over the last 12 months? Or on the eastern flank NATO and the European Union has there been a breach?

Neighborhood with a pinch of pragmatism

The border between Ukraine and Slovakia is less than one hundred kilometers long. Mutual relations between the two countries have never been particularly close, but they have not been characterized by any negative emotions. For years, Bratislava has adhered to the principle of “coming closer to the core of the European Union”, as Robert Fico stated years ago. The country adopted the euro and focused on cooperation with Western countries, realizing the size and possibilities of Slovakia. However, the country's unfavorable geopolitical location made it overwhelmingly dependent on Russian raw materials pumped through pipelines through Ukrainian territory. Slovakia has been hit by Russian-Ukrainian tensions several times, such as in 2009, when it was cut off from gas for a few days, or this summer (already during the war), when Ukrainian sanctions on Lukoil resulted in the suspension of oil supplies to Slovakia.

After Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Slovakia became a frontline state. In a short time, it was also forced to accept several hundred thousand people fleeing the combat zone, and the then center-right government began transferring military equipment to its fighting neighbor. That is why it resonated strongly among public opinion in the West survey “Ako sa máte, Slovensko?” from July of the same year in which when asked about the end of the war, 52 percent respondents answered that they would like Moscow to win.

The then president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, was one of Robert Fico's main political opponents. Photo from October 2023, when she entrusted Fico with the mission of forming a governmentCTK Photo/Vaclav Salek/PAP

On the website of Robert Fico's party you can read:

Smer is aware that in the coming term, the continuation of the armed conflict in Ukraine will be the dominant topic of foreign policy.

The formation program itself for the 2023 elections was exceptionally short and briefly touched on the issue of the war in the East. However, among a few sentences regarding international affairs, we can read that Smer rejects any military assistance because it “only prolongs the conflict and leads to the death of civilians.”

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Pragmatic squared. Post-communist and liberal, Eurosceptic and Euroenthusiast in one

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