Robert Fico meets Vladimir Putin in Moscow. (source: TASR/AP )
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. As Robert Fico plays nice with President Putin, his tortured relationship with history is laid bare. Fico’s coalition partner Hlas tries to evade the stigma of Moscow with an absurd claim.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
Fico takes a humiliating trip to Moscow
Slovakia has a schizophrenic view of its place in the world, lacks self-respect and, apparently, is in urgent need of a history lesson.
It’s a painful realisation for any inhabitant of Slovakia with so much as an ounce of patriotism in their body, but this was effectively the message that Prime Minister Robert Fico sent out to the rest of Europe about his country and its people when he set out on the diplomatic adventure that he now calls a “great diplomatic success”.
His May 9 visit to Moscow happened amid a lot of drama surrounding the flight itself – when it turned out that the Baltic states would not allow his government plane to fly over their territories, sending Fico and his entourage on a panoramic trip around the Black Sea and Georgia. It also did not happen without preparation: in the days running up to the visit, Fico repeatedly mentioned a new talking point that shows he is willing to go to some lengths to twist history.
He also gave the nation a practical demonstration of how it is impossible to separate history from present-day events – an argument he himself misused prior to his trip to justify his presence at Putin’s commemoration-turned-propaganda-event in the Russian capital.
