The European Union (EU) has neither exclusive nor shared competence in matters of public health. This authority belongs to individual states. In a video on the social network, Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer-SD) stated this in connection with the fact that the government refused to accept the revision of the regulations of the World Health Organization (WHO).
“The regulations regulate the procedures for cross-border pandemics. They create legal conditions, for example, for the possibility of mandatory vaccination, restrictions on the movement of people, forced withdrawal of medical products designated by the WHO and other similar interventions in the sovereignty of individual states,” said Fico.
He considers it strange that the EU asked the member states to accept these revised WHO regulations without reservations. As of March 1, according to the Prime Minister, 11 other countries rejected these regulations. At the same time, he recalled that Peter Kotlár, the government’s representative for the review of the process of management and resource management during the COVID-19 pandemic, also drew attention to their risks.
In the video, Fico also pointed out that the opposition refused to join the letter he intended to send to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on behalf of all parliamentary parties in connection with the Druzhba oil pipeline. “I assumed that Slovakia’s energy security is above all party interests and that together we will urge Zelenský to stop harming Slovakia, to allow a visit to the supposedly damaged oil pipeline in Ukraine, to repair it together and with EU money if it is really damaged, and to restore oil supplies to Slovakia and Hungary as quickly as possible,” said the prime minister.
He claims that the European Commission (EC) is formally on the Slovak side in this dispute. However, Fico does not feel enough pressure on the Ukrainian president. “President Zelenskyi has crossed all the red lines and a legitimate question must be raised as to whose interests are more important for the EC, the European Parliament and the European Council. Those of Ukraine or those of the EU member states“, added the prime minister.
At the same time, he responded to opposition criticism that Slovakia has high fuel prices. “We still have some of the cheapest fuels and the government, in cooperation with the Slovnaft refinery, will do everything to keep up with our neighbors in the V4 and certainly be cheaper than in Austria,” Fico pointed out.
He also declared that if the EU as an institution asked for a mandate for peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, he would vote for it “with both hands”. However, according to the prime minister, any peace agreement must be created and concluded only with the participation of Ukraine and with its consent.
