- Robert Fico suggests supporting Trump’s summit with Putin in Budapest.
- The Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic is planning a meeting with the German Chancellor on the topic of energy and cars.
- PS leader Šimečka fears Putin’s intention to prolong the war.
It would be most reasonable if the European Union (EU) supported the summit between the head of the White House, Donald Trump, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Budapest. He wants this question Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) to be opened at the upcoming meeting of the European Council.
He informed about this at Wednesday’s meeting of the Committee of the National Council (NR) of the SR for European Affairs. Fico is scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Wednesday evening. He wants to find a breakthrough with him on the issue of energy and car prices.
“I will ask the Council if it is right to go the way of packages and hard statements when we want the summit in Budapest to be,” said the Slovak Prime Minister. According to him, the EU does not know if it even wants the summit. According to Fico, the leaders should not draw conclusions about Ukraine, but only state that they support the summit.
“It is my turn to speak in the spirit of absolute support for this summit,” he added that the goal of the EU cannot be to shut Putin down, but to get everyone around the same table and negotiate. “Peace without handing over part of the territories that are in Ukraine today is not possible. Or do you have another idea? This is reality,” he added. He reiterated that it is up to each member state to decide what approach it will use with regard to Ukraine.
The prime minister also informed that a paragraph about the fact that the European Commission must “react quickly and hard to energy prices” was included in the draft conclusions of the meeting. According to him, Slovakia will also want conclusions on the issue of the automobile industry. In this context, he informed that it will be necessary to revise the proposal to ban internal combustion engines from 2035, the result should be a compromise. If it is possible to get the paragraph proposed by Slovakia into the conclusions of the session, Fico, according to his words, will “probably” inform Merz that Slovakia agrees to the 19th package of sanctions against Russia.
Leader of the opposition PS Michal Šimečka responded that European leaders, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, supported the idea of this summit in Budapest. However, Šimečka fears that Putin does not want a cease-fire because he wants to continue the war, as he feels that he is not at risk for it.
