Hlas leader and presidential candidate Peter Pellegrini and former Czech PM Andrej Babiš meet ahead of the second round of the Slovak presidential election in Bratislava on April 3, 2024. (source: SME - Jozef Jakubčo)
Welcome to your weekly commentary and overview of news from Slovakia. The interior Ministry under Šutaj Eštok suddenly decides to absolve Babiš of his communist-era secret police record. Central Europe’s populist leaders shake hands in Komárno. And back home, Fico’s coalition wobbles.
If you have a suggestion on how to make this overview better, let me know at michaela.terenzani@spectator.sk.
Interior Ministry helps out Babiš
Just before the presidential election that he eventually won, the then leader of the Hlas party, Peter Pellegrini, cosied up to former Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš, a Slovak-born billionaire who hopes to replicate in the Czech Republic, which will hold a general election next year, the success of Slovakia’s populists last September. Babiš, whose lawsuit against Slovakia’s institutions over his name being recorded as a collaborator of the communist-era secret police, supported Pellegrini a campaign event this spring – and even beforehand, when he said in an interview that Pellegrini was the best candidate, because “he is very firm when it comes to national interests”.
Pellegrini went on to win the election in April. Now, Babiš seems to have claimed his reward with a victory on Slovak soil, courtesy of Pellegrini’s protégé.
Matúš Šutaj Eštok, the interior minister and Pellegrini’s successor as Hlas leader, decided to agree a deal with Babiš to end a long-running series of disputes over his secret police files.
How the Slovak ministry yielded to Babiš
The deal, which the ministry announced last Monday, involves the ministry acknowledging Babiš’s claim that Slovak institutions were wrong to have him listed as a collaborator with the ŠtB, Czechoslovakia’s pre-1989 secret police. Babiš, in turn, is committing to withdraw lawsuits he had filed with the European Court for Human Rights, and promising not to demand compensation.
Babiš, whose codename in the secret police files in the possession of the Nation’s Memory Institute (ÚPN) is stated as Bureš, was still fighting his case before the Slovak courts until last week. The ministry has now curtailed that process and secured Babiš the result that he had long been hoping for.
The ministry said its decision was based on two legal analyses that – according to its characterisation – found the risk of the state losing the lawsuit to Babiš was very high, and that Slovakia might end up paying significant financial compensation to Babiš. One of the analyses was done by Eduard Bárány, who previously served as an advisor to Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer). The other analysis was done by Boom & Smart Slovakia law firm, which refused to publish it, the Sme daily reported.
The ministry, citing the analyses, argues that all the courts have so far decided in favour of Babiš in the ŠtB files lawsuit – but as my colleague Matúš Burčík of Sme has pointed out, this is not correct. Moreover, the Nation’s Memory Institute has provided the ministry with documents that contain a wealth of proof against Babiš.
