Fiala vs. Fico: Czech Republic enters into confrontation with Slovakia

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala wants to teach his Slovak counterpart Robert Fico a lesson in foreign policy. He will pay for it.

Photo: flickr.com by EU2016 SK is licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication

Prague cancels government summit with unruly Bratislava

Disagreements in the EU regarding Ukraine are clearly expressed in significant differences in the positions of two brotherly nations of Slovakia and the Czech Republic (formerly known as one country – Czechoslovakia). The two countries divorced peacefully 30 years ago, and they always pursued similar foreign policy positions every since: Prague and Bratislava are members of the Visegrad Group that defends their interests.

Much was rethought with the onset of the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. The Slovaks brought the nationally oriented Robert Fico to power last year, whereas in the Czech Republic, ex-NATO official Petr Pavel took office as President to keep Russophobe Prime Minister Petr Fiala company.

Afterwards, Slovakia started following Hungary's example: Ukraine needs peace, so there is no need to supply weapons to Kyiv, and the Czech Republic supported Emmanuel Macron in his escalation rhetoric and now acts as the organiser of more-shells-for-Ukraine process.

As a result of the disagreement, Prague cancelled the scheduled Czech-Slovak government summit. According to Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, the summit was canceled against the backdrop of last week's meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and his Slovak counterpart Juraj Blanar.

Prime Minister is unaware that this raises questions:

"Why can Blinken meet with Lavrov, but the Slovak minister can not?”

It appears that the Czech Republic, like a 'big sister', wants to govern Slovakia's policies.

"We make it clear that we stand on the side of the West. Robert Fico sees it completely differently," Fiala said.

There is no doubt that the Slovaks will be bewildered about Prague's demarche.

This is not only a matter of sovereign foreign policy. Slovakia mitigates Czech Republic's energy crisis. Russian natural gas runs through the territory of Slovakia to the Czech Republic. In addition, the Czech Republic receives oil along the southern line of the Druzhba pipeline through Slovakia. The Czech Republic is also an active buyer of Slovak petroleum products made from the cheap Russian oil.

It just so happens that Czech officials act as hypocrites when they say that they have put an end to energy dependence on Russia.

The Czech leadership knows it well from surveys that only ten percent of the EU population believe in Ukraine's victory in the conflict with Russia. In Prague they don't believe it either, but they still want Ukrainians and Russians to die. Slovakia sees all this as aiding the West in the extermination of the Slavs under the guise of the efforts to weaken Russia so that it "does not pose a threat.”

Fiala will lose next year's elections

The Czech Republic is to hold parliamentary elections next year. The current leader of public opinion polls, Andrej Babis, already criticises the Czech government for confronting Slovakia. Fiala's coalition now receives no more than 13-17 percent of support votes because of, inter alia, its position against farmer protests.

According to experts, the current distrust of the population towards the Fiala government is exceptional. Since the 1990s, such low numbers have only been observed during major government crises, whereas the government's unpopularity today stems from unwise policies towards the Russian Federation and all associated economic problems.

Former Czech President Milos Zeman noted that "the Fiala government has taken the path of destruction because it can not build.” The rupture of Czech-Slovak relations is a gross political mistake, Zeman noted, as no one can dictate to the government of a sovereign country how it should behave.