Slovakian left-wing nationalist Prime Minister Robert Fico has reiterated his claim that Ukraine will not become a member of NATO as long as he is the leader of Slovakia.
“Ukraine’s accession to NATO would be a good basis for a third world war,” Fico said in an interview on Sunday, October 6th, one day before his visit to Ukraine.
The conservative government of Hungary along with Fico’s cabinet—which came to power a year ago— have been the only governments in the EU who have refused to send weapons to Ukraine, and have criticised EU sanctions against Russia for harming Europe’s economy.
The two countries have been in a bitter dispute with Ukraine following Kyiv’s decision to halt Russian company Lukoil’s pipeline oil exports through the territory of Ukraine, and into Hungary and Slovakia, endangering the two countries’ energy security.
Echoing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s words, Robert Fico has said that the EU must strive for peace, instead of fanning the flames of the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“There is a military conflict in a neighbouring country where Slavs are killing each other, and Europe is significantly supporting this killing, which I just don’t understand,” he said on Sunday.
Comments like these, and Fico’s desire to pursue a sovereign foreign policy, have drawn the ire of the European liberal elites who are intent on punishing his government and withholding EU funds under a ‘rule of law’ pretext.
Fico—who survived an assassination attempt by a pro-Ukrainian protester in May—has previously said that the war cannot be solved militarily: Russia would never give back Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula it annexed in 2014, and its troops would never leave the eastern Ukraine territories it invaded. While Europe has to prepare for a Russian military victory, NATO cannot get involved as it would provoke a new world war, he said earlier this year.
While many NATO member states have welcomed the idea of Ukraine joining NATO, and the joint statement made at the military alliance’s summit in July declares that Ukraine is on an “irreversible” path to membership, in practice, all NATO members would have to agree to accept Ukraine. The country would only be able to join the alliance once its war with Russia is over.
Nevertheless, on his first visit to Ukraine a few days ago, new NATO chief Mark Rutte insisted that “Ukraine is closer to NATO than ever before.”
While the Slovakian PM believes Ukraine joining NATO would be a provocation in the eyes of Moscow, Fico has no problem with Ukraine wanting to join the EU. “We support your path to the EU 100%. Your membership will be important and valuable for us,” he told his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal at their meeting near the western Ukrainian city of Uzhhorod on Monday.
