Greenland is not a detail or an episode
The joint statement of the European Council on Greenland is therefore not some technical footnote. It is a fundamental EU political position on the principle that borders do not change under the pressure of great powers. If Robert Fico decides to accept Szíjjártó’s logic and does not support the statement – openly or silently – he will send a clear signal that Slovakia is breaking away from the mainstream of European foreign and security policy.
It is not only a signal for the EU authorities and its member states. It is also a message for Warsaw, Prague, Kyiv, our neighbors, how we stand to protect legitimate borders, but also a signal for Washington, Moscow and Budapest, which are interested in revising the borders, that Slovakia is permissive.
For the Slovak Republic, this moment is also crucial for another reason. It will depend on Robert Fico’s attitude whether he will keep the door at least ajar to participate in the coalition of the willing – that is, in the informal circle of states that are ready to act together in the area of security and geopolitical stability, even beyond the minimum consensus in the EU.
Breaking EU unity alongside Viktor Orbán in relation to Russian aggression and aid to defending Ukraine in the name of “sovereign foreign policy on all sides”, as well as spewing at the representatives of the EU and its member states that they are warmongers, running up to Vladimir Putin and slandering the EU in front of its enemies, have already provoked several warnings to both prime ministers that they are acting against the security interests of the community of which they are members.
It is not just hypothetical considerations. Most recently, MEP Dennis Radtke from the German CDU, the party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, has already openly called for building a new European security architecture without Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán, if they block common positions on key security issues.
It is a warning that Europe is increasingly ready to bypass those who hinder it in preparations for a new arrangement of international relations. The attitude of the Slovak Prime Minister at today’s European Council will thus have a direct impact on the course and results of the upcoming visit of the German Chancellor to Bratislava.
Berlin will watch very carefully whether Slovakia remains a predictable partner in European security issues, or whether it will be included among the countries with which it is still talked to, but is no longer counted in strategic decisions. The Prime Minister can choose the tactics of silence, delay or disputes over wording. However, the result will be readable.
Slovakia will either subscribe to the EU’s common position on the fundamental issue of defending Greenland’s sovereignty when deciding where it wants to belong, or accept Szíjjártó’s logic of a “bilateral matter that does not belong on the EU’s soil” – and thus consciously give up its place at the table with more than thirty participants of the “coalition of the willing” at which the future form of Europe’s security is decided.
It would be in a gray zone. Between, on the one hand, a newly reorganizing Europe, which found itself under the pressure of a fundamental change in American policy, and on the other, an aggressive imperialist Russia, whose Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly made it clear that he wants to see the Slovak Republic in the Russian sphere of influence.
Greenland is a test of whether the government’s European and foreign policy defends the strategic existential national-state interests of the Slovak Republic, which recently celebrated 33 years of independence.
