Republika leader Milan Uhrík. (source: TASR - Jakub Kotian)
Milan Uhrík, leader of the far-right party Republika, has said that they plan to initiate a referendum on Slovakia leaving NATO in the coming four years.
He stated the aforementioned during a TV interview last weekend.
The party, which has steady support among voters and is projected to win parliamentary seats after early elections scheduled for September 30, has long been said to become a coalition partner of one of the two parties after the election, Smer and Hlas.
Republika considers the Alliance to be a “relic of the Cold War” and calls for neutrality following Austria’s example.
Smer and Hlas reject anti-NATO referendum
Hlas, which has come third in recent public opinion polls, has said that it would not enter a coalition with Republika due to its ambition to hold an anti-NATO referendum.
“With this August 20 statement by the Republika leader, we can definitively declare that Hlas will never join any electoral coalition with this political party,” Hlas leader Peter Pelllegrini said, as quoted by the TASR news agency.
In May, he claimed that there would not occur a situation in which Hlas would have to form a government with Republika.
As for Smer leader Robert Fico, whose party leads public opinion polls, he claims that Slovakia’s foreign policy orientation must be preserved, as reported by TASR.
“We must fulfil the obligations arising from our membership [in international organisations],” Fico said, adding that Smer does not agree with the recommendation of spending more than 2 percent of GDP on defence.
However, he did not rule out that Smer would hold talks with Republika if the far-right party made it to parliament.
“I will neither exclude nor confirm anyone,” he said.
Neutrality would cost more, ministry says
In response to Republika’s ambition, the Defence Ministry said that a neutrality scenario would be a direct threat to Slovakia’s security and its existence.
“Russia allowed itself to attack Ukraine because it was neutral and was not directly protected by the Alliance,” noted the Defence Ministry. It also cited the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia when the Warsaw Pact troops invaded the country.
The ministry went on to remind Republika that neutrality would cost Slovakia much more than NATO membership, giving Switzerland as an example. Switzerland, the ministry said, spends €6 billion on defence.
