The Slovak Foreign Ministry has been led by career diplomats for a quarter of a century, with brief exceptions. Robert Fico has now broken this custom by nominating Juraj Blanár. Slovakia’s new foreign minister is deputy chairman and long-time member of the Direction party.

According to Peter Bárdy, editor-in-chief of the Aktuality.sk server, Blanár’s appointment is an example of Fico completely recusing himself from forming a competent cabinet of experts when forming a government. “This is a government made up of loyal partisans. Blanár is a completely unindependent politician who is incapable of making his own decisions or managing a group of people,” Bárdy said.

Before Blanár entered the Slovak parliament in 2002 for the Direction party, he worked for the construction company Váhostav. Between 2005 and 2017, he served as regional mayor of the Žilina Region, which is similar to a Czech governor.

However, he had no experience in diplomacy. Bárdy therefore assumed that Slovakia’s foreign policy would be determined by the Prime Minister himself. “Blanár will essentially be a heating stream for him. Blanár will explain and mitigate the opinions that Fico speaks loudly in European and global circles,” said the journalist.

“Normalization” of relations with Russia and American goals

Once the new government takes office, Slovakia’s foreign policy could develop in a different direction than before. Fico has long opposed military supplies to Ukraine. According to him, the European Union should help negotiate a peace agreement rather than sending weapons. In mid-October, after the election, he accused Ukraine itself of waging the war, among other things.

Blanár’s previous position as head of new diplomacy suggests that he thinks the same as Fico. For example, last January, a month before Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in front of the Bratislava Presidential Palace, together with other party members, he told “American agents that Slovakia wants peace.” this February as evidence of alleged Ukrainian Nazism be warned in accordance with Russian propaganda about the similarity of the name of the Ukrainian mountain assault brigade to the Nazi anti-partisan group.

“In 2021, he could not even oppose Russia on the side of the Czech Republic’s closest ally,” the Aktuality.sk server recalled. At that time, the Czech government expelled several Russian embassy employees in response to the discovery that Russian military intelligence agents were involved in the explosion in Vrbětice. The deputy speaker of parliament at the time, Blanár, responded by stating that Slovakia should ask Russia to normalize relations, and called the Czech move reckless.

According to experts, there will be changes in Slovakia’s foreign policy. Although the last government paid out Ukraine’s vocal supporters, including military supplies, with Fico’s cabinet, they say Slovakia may be leaning more towards Russia or China. “The direction of foreign affairs will change significantly, because people coming into government think alike. Perhaps only the chairman of Hlas, Peter Pellegrini, is more cautious,” said Alice Kizeková, a researcher at the Institute of International Relations.

The third coalition partner of the new government is the right-wing Slovak National Party (SNS), which supports Russia. Its chairman, Andrej Danko, claimed on social networks, for example, that Russian President Vladimir Putin acted in Ukraine in such a way as to protect the lives and health of Russian citizens.

Minister of Disinformation

Slovak media accused other members of the new government of incompetence and stirring up controversy. Six ministries were occupied by the Smér party, Pellegrini’s Hlas won seven ministries and the Slovak National Party won two ministries, and from January they will also occupy the new position of Sports Minister.

The name of the Minister of Environment is currently unclear. However, the day before the government’s inauguration, the SNS finally withdrew its original candidate, Rudolf Huliak, whose candidacy was rejected by President Zuzana Čaputová last week. The party eventually replaced him with another elected member of parliament, Tomáš Taraba. He became known for his aggressive rhetoric on Facebook, where he spread a wave of misinformation. He also verbally attacked President Čaputová’s daughter.

“The environment minister became the one who spoke negatively about nature conservationists and declared that the bottle reserve system in Slovakia was theft,” recalled journalist Bárdy.

Other candidates from the SNS party also caused controversy. The government sent former TV presenter Martina Šimkovičová to head of culture, who analysts also associate with pro-Russian and conspiratorial groups.