“I’m afraid of war,” Robert Fico told medical students at a teaching hospital in Presov last week.
“What is happening in Europe today, what we’re hearing and seeing today, is that the military conflict in Ukraine has got out of control,” he went on, warning them that Europe faced the possibility of a wider war.
He asked the students to imagine Slovakia being told to prepare “5,000 soldiers, 10,000 soldiers” who would go somewhere to fight “without us even knowing whom they are fighting, or why, or what for.”
Then he turned to Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty, under which an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all.
“I do not want Slovakia to be part of any military conflict because of some Article 5,” Fico said.
“Yes, we are in NATO. We value that. Cooperation and fulfilling our obligations matter to us. But as prime minister, I will do everything to ensure that Slovakia is never drawn into a military conflict.”
The remarks prompted uproar from the Slovak opposition and also a spat with Petr Pavel, president of neighboring Czechia and former chairman of NATO’s Military Committee.
“If anyone says they’re glad to be a member of NATO … but are unwilling to get involved if anyone else is attacked, then they have not understood the word solidarity,” Pavel said.
Fico replied that he understood that Pavel, as a former NATO general, would like to fight, while he himself preferred peace.
The impact on Slovakia’s standing
The Slovak prime minister’s fear of a wider war is shared by many Europeans. But critics at home gave his remarks short shrift.
“Isn’t he a prime minister? Isn’t he the leader of a country? Is he not supposed to lead people instead of expressing fears?” asked former Slovak Foreign Minister Miro Wlachovsky, now a distinguished fellow at the GLOBSEC think tank.
“My question for him as prime minister is: OK, even if the situation is as bad as you are saying, what I want to hear from you is how the country is prepared. What have you done for preparedness? Who will come to our aid in case we are attacked?” Wlachovsky told DW.
Asked whether Fico’s remarks could damage Slovakia’s standing among its allies, Wlachovsky replied: “It’s already done.”
Political background to Fico’s comments
Analysts see a clear political context to Fico’s remarks.
The Slovak prime minister will face a difficult reelection fight next year. Some observers believe Fico is trying to steal votes from the extreme-right Republika party, which is viscerally hostile to NATO and the EU and opposes military support for Ukraine.
Wlachovsky compared Fico’s rhetoric to that of Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orban and the current Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis, both of whom have presented themselves as the candidates of peace.
Babis was heavily criticized during his unsuccessful 2023 presidential campaign after questioning during a televised debate whether the Czech Republic should send troops to NATO ally Poland if it came under attack.
What is NATO’s Article 5?
Oana Lungescu, a distinguished fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and a former NATO spokesperson, told DW that Article 5 was “the most solemn pledge that a country can make to another.”
But its central purpose, she said, was deterrence: convincing a potential aggressor that it would face the alliance together, rather than an isolated member.
“This is about solidarity, standing together, underpinning deterrence and therefore avoiding war,” she said. “NATO is a defensive alliance. It’s not an offensive alliance.”
Nor would invoking Article 5 automatically send every member’s troops into combat, she said.
The North Atlantic Council, where every ally is represented, would assess an attack and decide by consensus whether it constituted an Article 5 situation — Slovakia’s voice would be equal to that of its 31 partners in that room, she said.
Once consensus was reached, each country would then assist the attacked ally by taking the action it deemed necessary, which might — or might not — involve armed force.
Article 5 has been invoked only once, following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Lungescu pointed to one of NATO’s initial responses: sending AWACS surveillance aircraft to patrol US skies and help prevent another attack.
She pointed out that Slovakia already benefits from the same solidarity Fico appeared to question. The country hosts a NATO multinational battlegroup established after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with personnel from several allies alongside Slovak troops.
Its purpose is to deter an attack on Slovakia.
‘Exactly what Putin wants’
For former Slovak Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad, the danger lies in allowing that fear to dictate policy towards Ukraine.
“This is exactly what Vladimir Putin wants,” said Nad, who was defense minister from 2020 to 2023 and is now head of the non-parliamentary opposition Democrats party.
“He wants citizens in the EU and NATO to believe that if EU and NATO countries continue to support Ukraine, this escalatory situation might lead to a Third World War or something like that,” Nad told DW.
Nad was in office when Slovakia decided to hand over its entire fleet of ageing MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine. Fico’s government later sought a criminal investigation into the transfer; prosecutors closed the case, finding no crime.
“Even when I was defense minister, I heard this not only from ordinary people but also from some ministers around the table: that we shouldn’t help Ukraine with this or that equipment or capability or ammunition, because it might create a difficult situation in terms of escalation towards Russia,” he went on.
“None of that happened.”
Edited by: Aingeal Flanagan
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