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pragmatic square. Post-communist and liberal, Eurosceptic and Euroenthusiast in one
Photo: MARTIN DIVISEK/PAP/EPA
He wants to go to Moscow and he asks: “who will stop me?”. He fears a third world war, but says he is “for peace”. He draws post-war scenarios and wants the “four corners of the world” doctrine. He participated in the 2023 elections with an anti-Ukraine program. What is Robert Fico's policy in Slovakia after a year back in power, and what has changed on NATO's eastern flank and the EU's external borders?
In October of last year, a few days after the parliamentary elections, Zuzana Čaputova, the then president of the Slovak Republic, wrote: “Military aid to Ukraine must continue.” However, he emphasized that he respects the result of the vote and the fact that the citizens won the Smer-SD party (Polish: Social Democratic Party). The organization of multiple Prime Minister Robert Fico was to win, the promise of peace. Or at least “de-escalation” in the east of the continent. The left-wing populist group has officially revealed that the war in Ukraine was actually a smokescreen for the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Washington, but it is taking place on another country's territory.
Zuzana Chaputova's entry from a year ago on Xx.com
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The caretaker government, which was in power shortly before Fico returned to the prime minister's chair, decided to stop the decision to give another part of military aid to Kiev, noting that the Slovaks favored in the elections, a political option opposed to the government. to do current policy. A year has passed. What changes have taken place in Slovak politics in the last 12 months? Is NATO and the European Union breached on the eastern side?
Neighborhood with a pinch of pragmatism
The border between Ukraine and Slovakia is less than a hundred kilometers. Relations between the two countries have never been particularly close, but they have not been characterized by negative feelings. For many years, Bratislava has been following the principle of “getting closer to the core of the European Union”, as Robert Fico said years ago. The country adopted the euro and focused on cooperation with Western countries, realizing the size and opportunities of Slovakia. However, the unfavorable geopolitical position of this country has made it more dependent on Russian raw materials, which are transported through pipelines through the territory of Ukraine. Slovakia has repeatedly faced Russian-Ukrainian tensions, for example in 2009, when it was cut off from gas for several days, or this summer (already during the war), when Ukraine's sanctions on Lukoil led to the suspension of oil supplies to Slovakia.
After Russia's aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, Slovakia became a front state. In a short period of time, it also had to accept several hundred thousand people who had fled the war zone, and the right-of-center government at the time began to transfer military equipment to its war-torn neighbor. That is why the question “Ako sa máte, Slovensko?” was very popular among Western public opinion. in July of the same year, when a question was asked about the end of the war, 52% of respondents answered that Moscow would win.
The then president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová, was one of Robert Fico's main political opponents. Photo from October 2023, when he entrusted Fika with the task of forming the governmentCTK Photo/Vaclav Salek/PAP
On Robert Fico's party website you can read:
Smer knows that the continuation of armed conflicts in Ukraine will be the main topic of foreign policy in the next period.
The formation program itself for the 2023 elections was extremely short and briefly touched on the issue of the war in the East. However, among the few sentences related to international affairs, we can read that Smear rejects any kind of military aid because it “only prolongs the conflict and causes civilian deaths”.
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