The situation in the Czech Republic involving a police raid against several politicians and senior state officials may have shaken the Czech political scene, but the scale of intervention appears rather disproportional, said Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico adding he had expected a much bigger case due to the type of intervention. According to him, such cases can also be resolved in a different manner than by "mass" action by SWAT teams. Then he went on saying Slovakia too, has dealt with similar cases when “somebody issued an order for wiretapping, and somebody received some benefits in exchange for leaving parliament in order to allow reform packages to be adopted”, said Fico.
According to Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kaliňák the situation in the Czech Republic is something very extraordinary in European terms. He also added that Slovak police have shown on several occasions that they have been working independently. However, independent MP Radoslav Procházka argues that the case in the Czech Republic only shows that the Czech lands were part of the Austrian half of the Habsburg Empire, while Slovakia was part of the Hungarian half. “In cultural terms, we're standing with legs apart - with one leg in Ukraine, and the other leg in Europe. At the same time, it appears that we fear to stand firmly on the European leg, which represents independent institutions, law-based state and equality before the law,” said Procházka giving the example of a Kazakh journalist, who was arrested a few years ago by the Slovak police, and the intervention of the Slovak police against activists calling for the observance of human rights in China.
