Slovaks do not want Ukraine in the EU. Only less than a third of all respondents were in favor and the majority rejected it. Despite this, Fico never changed his position, although he corrected it over time. “Membership of Ukraine in the EU will help the Union as such. I told Mr. Zelensky that we are ready to talk with them at any time about their entry into the EU,” Fico said in September, when Volodymyr Zelenskyi was still Mr.
It will not support any wilds
On the contrary, he claimed that Ukraine must beware of the large member states of the Union, because they will place artificial obstacles against it. “It will be a long process,” he added. However, the Russian attack on the Druzhba pipeline, for which Russian oil has not been flowing to us since January, did not only damage the pipeline, but also destroyed the little positive that remained in the relationship between Slovakia and Ukraine.
Since then, Robert Fico has considered Volodymyr Zelensky as a person who deliberately harms Slovakia, and this is also reflected in the rhetoric regarding Ukraine’s European perspective. “A country that simply behaves disrespectfully towards the member states of the European Union and we are expected to raise our hands as such sheep,” he warned in February.
He added that Slovakia’s attitude is changing with this. “Well, I can’t imagine that Slovakia would go on an adventure when it comes to joining the European Union.” Unconditional support has become conditional. “However, at this moment, I cannot imagine that Slovakia would support any wilderness,” says Fico, and by “wilderness” he means the accelerated integration of Ukraine into the EU.
“Therefore, if there is a proposal that tomorrow we will accept Ukraine into the European Union and this behavior of President Zelensky towards Slovakia continues, well, we will probably say, sorry, meet the basic conditions and then we can talk about accession,” says the Slovak Prime Minister. However, the future Hungarian is even more uncompromising.
It costs nothing to be uncompromising
Tisza writes explicitly in her program that Ukraine does not meet the conditions, and therefore they do not support its accelerated entry into the EU. And not only that. “If all accession chapters were closed many years later, Hungary would hold a legally binding referendum on this issue,” the winning party promises. So she would let the people decide on the “normal” entry of Ukraine.
Robert Fico warns Volodymyr Zelensky that the accession must be ratified by all member states. However, national parliaments usually do so. It’s just a formality. Hungary would choose a very unconventional referendum route. This has happened only once in the history of the EU. In 1972, the French voted in a referendum on whether they agreed to the expansion of the European Communities to include Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark and Norway.
60 percent of voters took part in it and 68 percent of them were in favor. Since 2005, such a ratification referendum has been mandatory according to the French constitution, but according to an amendment from 2008, it can be bypassed if the entry of another member country is ratified by both chambers of the French parliament. The entry of Croatia in 2013 was thus confirmed only by the deputies.
The solution proposed by Tisza could thwart Ukraine’s entry into the EU. The quorum is as high in Hungary as in Slovakia, so it is likely that the referendum would not be valid. Even in case of sufficient participation, it is not certain that the Hungarians would support the entry. More than half of them are against the accession, and even among the voters of Tisza, support reaches only 50 percent.
Thus, Fico and Magyar can hit Ukraine at an even more sensitive point than the Orbán blocking of the 90 billion loan. But the whole thing can be just a political game for the voters. Both Fico and Magyar know that Ukraine’s accession is a matter of the distant future. Its rapid integration into the EU has long been rejected by France and Germany.
It may take the ten years that Fico talks about, as well as the many years that Tisza mentions in the program. They don’t have to be there when decisions are made about him. It costs them nothing to be uncompromising now, and it also earns them political points. In the end, Fico and Magyar may not be as different as they seem. At least on the issue of Ukraine, both are the same populists.
