The new Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, is arriving in Slovakia today for an official visit during which he will meet with the country’s top political leaders. Slovak politicians had earlier welcomed the victory of the ANO movement and Bratislava native Babiš in last year’s parliamentary elections, and they expect the new Czech government to improve political relations between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
According to tradition, this will be Babiš’s first official foreign trip since his appointment as prime minister last December. In the morning, the Czech prime minister will meet with his Slovak counterpart, Robert Fico. According to the Slovak Government Office, the two leaders will discuss the development of bilateral relations as well as current issues in European and global politics.
On Wednesday, Fico said he believes joint meetings of the two governments will be renewed. Intergovernmental consultations with Bratislava were suspended the year before last by the cabinet of then Czech prime minister Petr Fiala, which justified the move by citing differing views between the two countries on key foreign policy issues.
In 2023, after Fico’s government took office, Slovakia, for example, halted military aid from state reserves to Ukraine, which has been defending itself against a Russian military invasion since February 2022. On Tuesday, after a meeting of leaders of the so-called coalition of the willing in Paris, Babiš said that the Czech Republic would not cancel its ammunition initiative for Ukraine, but would only coordinate it, and that Slovak citizens’ money would not be used for it. Before last year’s parliamentary elections, Babiš had promised to cancel the initiative through which the Czech Republic facilitates the supply of large-caliber ammunition to Kyiv. Fico, who has long criticized the approach of Western European countries to the war in Ukraine, did not attend the Paris meeting.
In the afternoon, Babiš will also meet in Bratislava with Slovak President Peter Pellegrini and the Speaker of the Slovak parliament, Richard Raši. The Czech prime minister will then lay wreaths at memorials to the co-founders of Czechoslovakia.
Source: TASR
