BRATISLAVA – Slovakia’s opposition party Progressive Slovakia (PS) has urged Prime Minister Robert Fico to scrap his planned trip to China for World War II victory celebrations, where he is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the third time in less than a year.
Progressive Slovakia said the visit would bring Slovakia “yet another international shame.”
“He will be there as the only EU prime minister. Just like his May trip to Moscow, this will again result only in photos and symbolic gestures that isolate Slovakia and damage its reputation,” the party’s leader, Michal Šimečka, said on Monday.
Former minister and PS candidate in last year’s presidential elections noted that Fico has met Putin and China’s president twice, but not once with the German chancellor, the French president or the British prime minister.
“He chooses partners who are not only far removed from democracy, but with whom we are unable to defend Slovak interests,” Korčok noted.
