The EU’s support for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and “fanatical” environmental policies are “destructive for Europe,” according to Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, but Brussels does not accept debate on these topics.
“If we can’t tell the truth at the Brussels table that, for example, anti-Russian sanctions didn’t work, that further destruction of Ukraine and killing Ukrainians is going nowhere, that the fanatic implementation of the Green Deal is killing our economies, that 20 thousand casualties in the Gaza Strip cannot be overlooked just because Israel causes them, we are on a slippery slope that can be not only politically, but also economically destructive for Europe,” Fico told a news conference.
The Slovak PM has cut off his own country’s military aid to Kiev and vowed to block Brussels’ next sanctions package if it includes an embargo on Russian nuclear fuel. While Fico did not veto the European Council’s decision on Thursday to open accession talks with Ukraine, he has dismissed the vote as “a political decision that has nothing to do with reality,” and asserted that Kiev “is absolutely unprepared to open the negotiations.”
Most EU leaders, including Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, lauded Thursday’s vote as “a breakthrough” and “a clear signal of support” for Kiev.
Apart from Fico, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been the EU’s most vocal opponent of the bloc’s sanctions policy and push for Ukraine’s accession. Orban has dubbed Ukraine “one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” and the EU’s leaders “senseless and irrational” for initiating membership talks with a country embroiled in an ongoing conflict and reliant on foreign help to function.
Before the conflict in Ukraine began, Orban regularly clashed with the EU over his hardline immigration policies. Earlier this year he accused Brussels of “raping” Hungary and Poland by introducing legislation that he said would “relocate migrants to Hungary by force.”
“I respect every politician who can sovereignly stand up for the interests of his own nation, because today in Europe discussion is more of an exception than a rule,” Fico wrote on Facebook. “And Viktor Orban is the exception.”
When engaging with EU authorities, the Slovak president said he would use a similar approach and would not seek “personal praise from the West.”
Fico’s stance on the Ukraine conflict was a major role in his party’s expulsion from its European parliamentary faction, the Party of European Socialists, in October. In response to the suspension, Fico stated, “If exclusion from the international party is the price for pursuing a genuine left-wing agenda in Slovakia and expressing sovereign opinions, we are willing to pay such a price.”
