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Slovakia on the side of Hungary? - Yes and no

2023-12-20 15:00:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Slovakia on the side of Hungary? - Yes and no

If Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban hoped Robert Fico would support his obstructionist course at the EU summit, he has been disappointed. The new Slovak prime minister joined the vast majority of EU states in Brussels and backed the launch of membership negotiations with Ukraine, albeit with reservations. "We will not hinder the European Union's decision to start negotiations with Ukraine," Fico told reporters after arriving in Brussels.

Observers had doubts that he could follow the course of his Hungarian counterpart, also due to the fact that during the election campaign he had maintained a rigorous anti-Ukrainian stance. Orban remained the only head of state who did not want to accept the start of membership talks with Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova. Before the decisive vote he left the hall, so all the other heads of state and government unanimously decided to start membership negotiations.

Slovakia on the side of Hungary? - Yes and no

Rapprochement with Ukraine

However, Orban insisted on vetoing the 50 billion euro aid to Ukraine. Even on this issue, he could not win Fico over to his side. "I'm glad that 26 countries managed to agree on this compromise proposal. It's a good compromise," Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Friday (December 15, 2023). Due to the historically close Czecho-Slovak relations, Fiala is in very close contact with Fico.

Little is left of the harsh anti-Ukrainian statements of the Slovak prime minister before the elections. On the contrary, he showed the desire for good relations with the big neighboring country. His government allows commercial arms sales from Slovakia to Ukraine to continue and has offered Kiev help with demining. In addition, Fico announced at the summit in Brussels that in January he will hold talks with Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Smyhal on the common border.

Fico v. Special Prosecution

While Fico, despite his pre-election rhetoric, is not following a confrontational course with Kiev, in his country Slovakia he is carrying out a rigorous police purge. Through the immediate change of the law, he aims to liquidate the most powerful bodies of the rule of law, the special prosecutor's office and the special criminal court. They were established in 2005 to prosecute serious crimes and corruption.

In more than three years, the special prosecutor's office has indicted and in some cases convicted judges, prosecutors, police officers and several high-ranking politicians associated with Fico's Smer party. The former Minister of the Interior and the current Minister of Defense, Robert Kalinak, was taken into custody. Ten other people, including former special prosecutor Dushan Kovacik, were convicted. Fico himself was also accused and only his parliamentary immunity and the decision of the parliament not to subject him to criminal prosecution protected him from detention.

"The special prosecutor's office is a hotbed of human rights violations," says Fico now. It has been set up together with the special court and the police to wage a political battle against his party and him personally.

The double murder of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kusnirova

In 2018, Fico resigned as prime minister after the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kusnirova. At that time there was a huge wave of demonstrations in Slovakia with about five million inhabitants. The person who ordered the killing has not yet been caught and the trial has not yet ended. However, a direct link with Fico and his government could not be proven.

Slovakia on the side of Hungary? - Yes and no

But the investigations related to the murder revealed a wide network of corruption among judges, prosecutors, policemen, businessmen and politicians, even from Fico's Smer party. However, Smer won the early elections under his leadership at the end of September and managed to form the government. Immediately after coming to power, Fico took the first steps for the immediate abolition of the prosecution and the special court. The procedure must be quickly passed through the parliament before the end of the year. This decision brought the Slovaks out on the streets again in recent days to protest. "He wanted to betray us," Michal Simecka, head of the strongest opposition party Slovakia Progressive, said on December 12, 2023, before thousands of demonstrators in Bratislava. "He wanted to do it quickly, he wanted to steal the rule of law before Christmas by abolishing the special prosecutor's office and reducing penalties for corruption."

Brussels is ready to intervene

Last week the fight for the rule of law in Slovakia was taken all the way to the European Parliament. Last Wednesday (December 13, 2023) a debate between representatives of the European Commission and MEPs took place in Strasbourg on this topic. "The Commission will not hesitate to take all necessary steps to guarantee compliance with EU law," EU justice commissioner Didier Reynders assured MEPs, citing the possibility of limiting the payment of EU funds to Slovakia.

The Fico government wants to prevent this, coordinating the steps with the European Commission in advance. "We don't do politics by coming and banging our fists on the table," Foreign Minister Juraj Blanar told DW. "We want to communicate, we don't want to do anything in secret, because we are interested in good relations."

This was welcomed by the European Commission, which called on Slovakia not to take hasty measures against the special prosecutor's office and other institutions. "The European Commission has to wait until the laws in question are approved in Slovakia before it can object to something," European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova told DW.

The debate in the European Parliament and the warnings from the European Commission have angered Fico. He accused the Slovak opposition of fomenting in Brussels a spirit against the government in Bratislava. "Not even rats do something like that," he told Slovak media. Opposition MPs objected to Fico's accusations./ DW





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