WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY SLOVAKIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI #177: SLOVAKIA: SOLIDARITY CRISIS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

Slovakia voted: it is tired of immigrants, including Ukrainian ones, but
above all it is tired of the war . The voters said it clearly, voting in
the majority for the parties against the war, whether they were right or
left: the party in government, "Progressive Slovakia", a supporter of
the war, which obtained a meager 18%, although exit polls and some
pre-electoral polls considered him to be the winner, but he is the real
loser at the polls. The reading of the vote is unambiguous, to the point
of being shared by former Prime Minister Ondor who, in concert with the
President of the Republic Zuzana Caputova, froze any decision on
military aid to Ukraine, believing that the new Government should decide
. Therefore, in the aftermath of the election results, Robert Fico,
leader of the winning Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-Sd) party with
23% of the votes and 42 seats out of the 150 in the Národná Rada (the
single-chamber parliament), was tasked with forming a new
government .
The elections saw the participation of 68% of eligible voters, never so
numerous since 2002, who voted, influenced by the country's economic
crisis caused by the interruption of energy supplies from Russia,
completely cut off due to the Ukrainian war and not structurally
replaced, while the national air defense system was dismantled to donate
war equipment to Ukraine. The outgoing government looked to the United
States in search of easy geopolitical dividends without actually
obtaining any, disappointing the electorate. Robert Fico was able to
interpret this
discontent by recovering the discredit accumulated in the past.

Robert Fico, a long-time politician

The Premier is a former member of the Communist Party. At the end of the
Velvet Revolution, which led to the birth of the Czech Republic and the
Slovak Republic, he joined the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), a
political force that took up the legacy of the Communist Party in the
new Slovakia. A law graduate, for six years - from 1994 to 2000 - Fico
represented his country at the European Court of Human Rights. In 1999
he left the Democratic Left and proposed himself to voters as an
alternative to the communists and socialists, creating a 'new left'
party closer to the centre. In the 2006 elections Fico led his party to
victory with 29.1% of the votes and became prime minister for the first
time, leading a coalition with the Slovak National Party (SNS) and the
People's Party - Movement for a Democratic Slovakia (HZDS) and in 2010
Fico returns to the opposition. In 2012 Slovakia goes to the polls again
and Fico becomes the new prime minister with 44% of the votes and
continues to be the head of government from 2016 to 2018, although with
less electoral consensus.
His government falls due to popular protests over the murder of
investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his partner Martina Kusnirova
who was working on some investigations into fraud and corruption
relating to EU funds received from Slovakia and who had denounced the
closeness of some politicians close to Fico and the 'Ndrangheta.
It seemed that Fico's political career was over, but he was able to
interpret the underlying unease produced first by the right-wing
government led by Heger, then by the technical one of Ódor who had
replaced him and who went into electoral conflict. He did it at the
price of changing his political positions, adapting them to the mood of
the electorate. During his first governments, Fico had always shown
himself to be strongly pro-European - it was with him that Slovakia
adopted the euro, but now he has taken on the burden of the tiredness of
the Slovaks who have not forgotten the times of the Second World War:
the Russians «There they liberated, we should show some respect" he
said, then
added: "We must tell the whole world that freedom comes from the East,
war always comes from the West."
In defense of the country's economic interests, he spoke out against
sanctions against Russia, taking on board the population's growing
annoyance towards Ukrainian refugees who, with the continuation of
hostilities, have become the majority of the country's migrants.
Competition from Ukrainian wheat and cereals, damaging the very numerous
farmers in Slovakia, did the rest so Fico declared that "Slovakia has
more important problems than relations with Ukraine" and added: "We are
ready to help Ukraine on a humanitarian level and with the
reconstruction of the country, but not with armaments" and said he was
ready to "organise peace talks as soon as possible". It is clear that
the mood has changed in the country and for the European Union and
Ukraine this is not good news.

The new Government

On 16 October Figo announced that he could form the new Government by
allying himself with the ex-premier and leader of the pro-European
social democracy Hlas-Sd, Peter Pellegrini, the social democrats of Smer
and the extreme right of the Slovak National Party. The agreement was
conditioned by the disagreements that arose between the Progressive
Party of the vice-president of the EU Parliament, Michal Shimecka and
the Christian Democratic Movement. But Shimecka accused the ex-premier
of having decided to support Fico the day after the elections because
"stronger interests" bind them. Pellegrini, leader of the Hlas-Sd,
founded in 2020 after the split from Smer, assured that with his
presence he will guarantee Slovakia's membership of the EU and NATO
despite the Eurosceptic orientation of the new Government majority.
This party wants to act as a guarantee of a foreign policy of
continuity, through a constant blackmail to Smer (42 deputies) and the
right-wing nationalists (10) to abandon the coalition otherwise and this
is possible because in a Parliament of 150 seats, Pellegrini's 27
deputies are determined for any majority, especially for the one that
will emerge and which should count on 79 votes in favour.
Concerning the new government structure, Brussels is worried about the
positions of the Slovak National Party which will receive government
positions, after years of right-wing extremist propaganda by its leader
Tomásh Taraba, condemned for the diffusion of Nazi symbols and
interested in seeing the request to reduce sanctions for the improper
use of EU funds, an issue in which his party, linked to farmers, is
implicated. All this, while the role of Fico following the murder of the
journalist Ján Kuciak and his girlfriend Martina Kushnírová was not
clarified, who - as was said - had denounced links between the
'ndrangheta and the Slovak elite, including exponents of Smer.

Slovakia and the war in Ukraine

The ongoing political developments in Slovakia risk having serious
consequences for the European Union regarding support for Ukraine. As
the elections in the German states of Bavaria and Hesse also
demonstrate, there is a growth in far-right parties also taking
advantage of the tiredness of the populations due to the economic
crisis, the growing cost of energy, the intrusiveness of the many
Ukrainian refugees who with the continuing hostilities are turning into
permanent migrants for whom ad hoc support paths have been created that
are more favorable to the needs of the poor sections of the native
population.
Fico, as an astute and experienced politician that he is, focused his
entire election campaign strategy on anti-Ukrainian and anti-sanctions
rhetoric against Russia, accusing Brussels and the Western allies of
having "only prolonged the conflict" with the support armed and for
having "damaged the EU more than Russia" by adopting restrictive
measures against Moscow that have harmed Western countries more than the
Russians. In particular, Slovakia, landlocked and entirely dependent on
Russian supplies for gas and oil, paid a very high price, like many
other countries, while Ukraine continued to collect rights of passage
from the surviving Russian oil and gas pipelines until until they
stopped working.
Fico has resorted to a pro-Putin narrative, as demonstrated by
statements against "Ukrainian Nazis and fascists" who "provoked" Russia
by "forcing" it to invade as part of a conflict that began in 2014. What
Brussels fears is that with the new Government, Slovakia, which - it
should not be forgotten - directly borders
Ukraine, will become a new obstacle to pro-Kiev European unity. As for
the social democrats of Hlas-Sd, Pellegrini has always been vague and
stated that the country "no longer has anything to donate" to Kiev, but
at the same time he has not taken any steps backwards on armed support.
The possibility, after the outcome of the Polish elections, of isolating
Viktor Orbán, especially in relation to the attack on the rule of law
and the challenge to the prevalence of community law over domestic law,
pushes the European Union to accept the return to power of Fico, despite
its ambiguities, in order to seize the opportunity to effectively dismantle
the Visegrád Group from the point of view of a political bloc that works
against the choices of the EU and the cohesion policy. There is no lack
of openness towards the Union on the part of the parties that form the
new majority in Slovakia which is expressed in the sharing of choices
towards the green transition and internal reforms within the EU
(including a possible gradual abandonment of unanimity in the Council).
This choice is increasingly necessary today in light of the fact that
European social democrats are evaluating which countermeasures to take
instead of the fact that the Smer party is associated with the Party of
European Socialism (PES) - unlike Pellegrini's party which never entered
despite declaring itself a socialist , it's part of it. It is worth
remembering that Fico's party was already suspended by the PSE for ten
months in 2006, after the formation of the first government coalition
with the Slovak National Party - a scenario that will recur shortly -
and risked suspension in 2015 for his
anti-migration positions, even if it never led to expulsion.
Finally, it should be noted that new balances of power are taking place
in Europe and that next month there will be voting in the Netherlands, a
country in which the newborn farmers' party appears to be growing
strongly and is characterized by denialist opposition on climate change,
opposed to the gender transition. and is against the "solidarity
corridors for Ukrainian agricultural commodities, whose competition and
depressive effects on the value of agricultural products he fears.
The complications of the international political framework and the
crisis in the Middle East do the rest, helping to outline a picture of
instability which today involves all countries, albeit to a different
extent and in different ways. It is quite clear that the cessation of
hostilities in Ukraine increasingly represents an urgent precondition to
allow Europe to develop, also in light of the electoral deadlines and
the choice of the new Commission, a program for its future, which at the
moment it presents many unknowns for all political forces.
All this while, in fact, the "piecemeal world war" is underway and a
multipolar world is about to take the place of a world order that was
based on the economic and military hegemony of a single country: the
United States of America who are heading for elections that threaten to
once again be highly divisive and which, whatever happens, will leave
the country entrusted to the management of two gerontocrats, with
consequences that are difficult to imagine.

The Editorial Staff

https://www.ucadi.org/2023/10/21/slovacchia-crisi-della-solidarieta/
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