Photo: Geert Vanden Wijngaert Associated Press Before leading Slovakia, Robert Fico had built a European reputation as the country's representative to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from 1994 to 2000.
France Media Agency to Bratislava
Posted at 5:44 p.m.
- Europe
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, who was shot several times on Wednesday, has ended military aid to Ukraine and advocated peace talks with Russia since returning to power last year.
Slovakia, a member of the European Union and NATO, had previously provided substantial defense assistance to the Ukrainians. And this, from the start of the Russian invasion, in February 2022.
Before returning to his duties as head of the Slovak government in October, this now elderly man 59-year-old had promised that his country would no longer send “a single bullet” to Ukraine.
In this regard, he assured that the war had “started” there in 2014″, when “Ukrainian fascists” killed “civilians of Russian nationality”, repeating unproven allegations from Russia.
In January, he claimed that Ukraine was “not an independent, sovereign country” but was “entirely under the influence and control of the United States.”
< p>However, he was more conciliatory in April, when he called for a peaceful solution that respects Ukrainian “territorial integrity and sovereignty.” “The use of military force by Russia in Ukraine is a gross violation of international law,” he also insisted.
Also read
- Victim of an attack, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is “between life and death”
- Peter Pellegrini new president of Slovakia
- In Slovakia, populists ally with the far right and the left to govern
A former communist
Born on September 15, 1964, Robert Fico began his political career within the Communist Party just before the “Velvet Revolution” of 1989 swept away the regime of the former Czechoslovakia.
Its relations with Russia are historically determined by the socialist motto “With the Soviet Union for eternity”
— Michal Vasecka
In 1999, he left the Party of the Democratic Left (SDL), the political heir of the PC, to found Smer-Social-Democrate (Smer-SD).
According to Slovak sociologist Michal Vasecka, Robert Fico admires the authoritarianism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Its relations with Russia are historically determined by the socialist motto 'With the Soviet Union for eternity,'” adds Mr. Vasecka in a book he wrote about it.
Robert Fico also affirmed that he would not authorize the arrest of Vladimir Putin, under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court, if he ever visited Slovakia.
Links with the extreme right
Lawyer by profession, fluent in English, he built a European reputation as Slovakia's representative to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg from 1994 to 2000.
In 2006, the Smer-SD largely won the legislative elections, catapulting Robert Fico to head of government, two years after Slovakia joined the EU.
Photo: Alexander Zemlianichenko archives Associated Press Robert Fico and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, August 25, 2016. According to Slovak sociologist Michal Vasecka, Robert Fico admires the authoritarianism of the Russian president.
He then formed a coalition with the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), which shares his anti-refugee rhetoric and populist leanings, then took advantage of the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 to boost his popularity by refusing to impose austerity measures.
Returned to the opposition in 2010, he won the elections two years later after the fall of a center coalition right, against a backdrop of corruption allegations.
Italian Mafia
Cet racing car enthusiast suffered a disappointment in 2014 when his presidential ambitions collided with the victory of a political novice, philanthropist Andrej Kiska.
During the migration crisis in Europe in 2015, Robert Fico opted for firm stances towards migrants, refusing to “give birth to a distinct Muslim community in Slovakia” and criticizing the European quota program aimed at redistributing refugees.
Smer-SD won the 2016 elections, but his premiership ended two years later, after the murder of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée.
This crime sparked a wave of protest actions across Slovakia, with Jan Kuciak denouncing the links between the Italian mafia and the Fico government in his last posthumous article.
An anti-corruption coalition took power following the 2020 legislative elections, during which Mr. Fico managed to preserve his seat in Parliament.