Newly-elected Progressive Slovakia MEPs. (source: Facebook profile of PS)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. Progressive Slovakia has won the EP election. PM Fico made a first public appearance after the attack just before the moratorium.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
People in Slovakia voted in the European elections on Saturday in unprecedented numbers. The largest opposition party, Progressive Slovakia (PS), took first place for a second successive cycle, repeating its success from 2019.
But the political event of the week, at least in Slovakia, came before the vote – in fact, just a few hours before the pre-election media moratorium began on Wednesday night – when, three weeks after surviving an attempt on his life, Prime Minister Robert Fico reappeared for the first time in public. He announced that he was recovering from the severe injuries he had suffered, and was preparing to return to work in July.
That return date may apply to Fico’s formal prime ministerial duties, but not to his political role. A lot of work went into his comeback appearance in a 14-minute video posted to social media. Despite never directly mentioning the European elections, he effectively joined the campaign just where he had left it before the Handlová attack – heaping blame on the opposition, the media, and, more fiercely than before, on Slovakia’s western partners.
"A Slovak opposition activist tried to assassinate me," Fico said in the very first sentence of his video, titled “I forgive and I warn”. He also dubbed his attacker, identified by police as Juraj C., a messenger of evil and hatred unleashed by a "failed and frustrated opposition".
