FT’s Big Read: The new face of European illiberalism

Prime Minister Robert Fico has consolidated power in Slovakia, inspired by Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán's tactics. Critics warn of Slovakia's drift toward authoritarianism, likening it to a broader "illiberal bloc" within the EU that challenges democratic norms and opposes support for Ukraine..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here..By Raphael Minder in Bratislava.Prime Minister Robert Fico has tightened his grip on Slovakia using Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán's playbook as inspiration .___STEADY_PAYWALL___.On a spring afternoon in a former coal mining town, Robert Fico briefly became a household name. .The Slovak prime minister was greeting a small crowd of his supporters in Handlová when an assailant pulled out a handgun and shot him five times at close range. The unusually brazen assassination attempt was global news. World leaders, from Joe Biden to Vladimir Putin, were united in condemnation of the act..But if Slovaks had imagined a brush with mortality might change their combative head of government, they were soon put right. Upon leaving hospital three weeks after being shot, Fico lashed out in a video at opposition parties, "anti-government media" and civil society critics led by Hungarian-born billionaire philanthropist George Soros..He rejected the idea — initially explained by his own interior minister — that the shooter was a lone wolf. Instead he called his 71-year-old assailant an "activist of the Slovak opposition", without providing evidence..It was his political views that had put a target on his back, he said — especially his opposition to imposing western sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. "It is a cruel observation," he said, "but the right to a different opinion has ceased to exist in the EU." .Even before the shooting, Fico had been tightening his grip on Slovakia. Following his return to office in October 2023, his three-party coalition closed an anti-corruption prosecutor's office, rewrote the criminal code to lower sentences, overhauled the public broadcaster and cracked down on NGOs. .After the attempt on his life in May, Fico's coalition drafted security rules that limit the right to protest around official buildings, using the argument that politicians needed more protection. As part of a police reform, the government disbanded an elite police agency that investigated terrorism and corruption and charged its chief with abuses of power. .His critics say Fico is driving Slovakia towards what former premier Iveta Radičová calls "step-by-step autocratisation". She and others accuse Fico of using the illiberal and polarising playbook of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán in neighbouring Hungary. "You find enemies or you just create them, in order to divide society and defeat the elites and institutions that stand in your way," Radičová says. .Fico's return to power, and the forces he sought to blame for his shooting, underscore how the political map of central Europe is being redrawn. The far-right Freedom party (FPÖ) came top in Austria's parliamentary elections. In Prague, Eurosceptic former premier Andrej Babiš is hoping to follow in Fico's footsteps and return to office next year, after winning local Czech elections last month..It suggests the emergence of a new illiberal "bloc" within the EU joining Orbán in opposing transnational legislation, as well as attempting to block Nato support to Ukraine. This month Fico pledged that Kyiv would never join the military alliance while he was premier.."These populists have some disagreements, but they all understand that people in the old Habsburg nations are used to alpha male leaders and many also feel that Brussels neglects them," says Jan Rafael Lupoměský, a former adviser to the Czech president who now runs a Warsaw-based risk consultancy..For some, the world's attention on Slovakia at this sensitive moment is a reminder of the dark days of the late 1990s, when corruption and autocratic leanings in the newly independent nation prompted then US secretary of state Madeleine Albright to call the country the "black hole of Europe"..Read more: 🔒 MAGA is obsessed with Orban's Hungary: A cautionary tale for democracy – Marc Champion."Slovakia is at a crossroads," says Ivan Korčok, a former foreign minister who was narrowly defeated as the pro-EU candidate in April's presidential election. "Either we reverse course quickly or we will become increasingly distant from a liberal democracy." .Fico won his first seat in Parliament in 1992, a few months before Slovakia became a sovereign state. His Smer party, formed in 1999, has dominated domestic politics since Slovakia joined the EU alongside other former communist countries 20 years ago. .He is serving his fourth mandate as premier, a job he has held for 11 of the past 18 years. In his first term, from 2006 to 2010, he initially embraced European integration. Slovakia adopted the euro in 2009, unlike its neighbours Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic.."Fico came from the left," says Boris Zala, a co-founder of Smer. "He was a very practical man who wasn't talking about ideology." .His transformation came during his second stint in government. After an unsuccessful bid for Slovakia's presidency in 2014, and as Europe's migration crisis weighed on countries like Hungary and Slovakia, Fico shifted to the right politically, Zala says. "This migration crisis made him look closely at Orbán's politics and see how this could also work in Slovakia's conservative society." He won his third mandate in 2016 on an anti-migrant platform.."I think Fico used to care more about how Slovakia was seen outside, as a pro-western nation," says Norbert Kurilla, who was a state secretary in Fico's third coalition government. "Now he is willing to diverge much more from democratic principles, even if he can at times still be very pragmatic.".In 2018, he was forced to resign amid mass street protests that followed the killings of a journalist and his fiancée. The reporter, Ján Kuciak, was investigating ties between Slovakia's governing politicians and organised crime. .Now Fico is willing to diverge much more from democratic principles, even if he can at times still be very pragmatic.The murders marked a low point for institutional trust among Slovakia's 5.5mn residents. Public outrage not only pushed out Fico but also several other senior officials, including Tibor Gašpar, who was Slovakia's longest-serving police chief, and Fico's interior minister Robert Kaliňák. .In 2022, Fico narrowly survived a vote in Parliament to lift his immunity and have him prosecuted for organised crime charges. Bribery charges were dropped last year against Kaliňák. In August, Fico's justice minister even got former special prosecutor Dušan Kováčik released from jail. He was serving an eight-year prison sentence for taking a bribe from a crime boss and leaking information about investigations. .But some Fico officials are still being prosecuted, including the governor of Slovakia's central bank, Peter Kažimír, who faces separate bribery charges dating back to his time as Fico's finance minister. He denies wrongdoing. .Despite the allegations pursuing Fico, he was able to stage a comeback once the coalition government that replaced him imploded in 2022 after mismanaging the pandemic. Their unsuccessful efforts to prosecute Fico also backfired, after Fico portrayed himself during the campaign as the victim of a witch-hunt..The 2023 election campaign featured smears, threats and even a fist fight between rival politicians. Fico coupled anti-migration nationalism with leftwing pledges of state subsidies to help Smer win in smaller towns and the countryside rather than the capital Bratislava..Smer confounded the exit polls by finishing first. The western community was aghast: Fico had also campaigned promising to withdraw Slovakia's support for Ukraine, and instead push for a peace treaty with Russia. .One EU leader at least welcomed the news. "Always good to work together with a patriot," wrote Orbán on X. "Looking forward to it!" .Fico's comeback also allowed his loyalists to resurface in key jobs, sometimes alongside their relatives. .Former police chief Gašpar is now vice-chair of parliament, while his son Pavol was appointed director of Slovakia's intelligence agency. Kaliňák is defence minister while his nephew Erik heads Fico's council of advisers and is leading the charge against anti-government journalists whom Fico recently called "bloodthirsty bastards". .Asked about nepotism, deputy prime minister Tomáš Taraba says that "yes, we have a father and son, but you also had the Kennedy brothers", in reference to John F Kennedy, who was US president while his brother Robert was attorney-general. .Fico's opponents claim his government's cronyism is also worryingly reconfiguring lower ranks of public administration, where loyalists are replacing technocrats. For instance, they say Taraba unfairly sacked dozens of experts from his environment ministry. .Taraba, who was elected to parliament on the list of the far-right Slovak National party, says he fired 30 officials, most for failing to disburse EU funds earmarked for Slovakia.."A lot of people are just trying to create a fake agenda about me making a purge of the best quality people, but I can tell you in every single case why I decided not to continue the co-operation with these people," he says. .The coalition also managed to extend its control of the executive. In April, Fico's former protégé Peter Pellegrini — whose party is also in the ruling coalition — won the presidency. .A month later came the attempt on Fico's life. The shooting prompted a rare moment of unity, with a call for calm delivered jointly by Pellegrini and outgoing pro-EU president Zuzana Čaputová. .It did not last long. In the wake of his video, Fico and his allies have continued to allege that the assassination attempt was engineered by his political enemies..Taraba also tells the Financial Times that Fico was shot by "a partisan of an opposition party" and predicts an ongoing investigation will confirm this. But in a separate interview, opposition leader Michal Šimečka says that the government should avoid unfounded accusations and instead explain security flaws that also left Fico lying on the ground unshielded by his bodyguards after being shot. In the shooting's aftermath, Fico's government rejected calls to dismiss the head of his security team.."We had the most serious incident in our history when there was an attempt on Mr Fico's life and there has been absolutely no accountability since, which I find frustrating and absurd," Šimečka says.."Compare that with what happened after Donald Trump was shot." In July, the director of the US secret service resigned after former president Trump was shot during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania..Since May, Fico and his coalition partners have doubled down. .Slovak politics have long featured intense polarisation, but the current level of acrimony is unprecedented, according to several observers. ."When I was prime minister, Mr Fico attacked almost every day, mostly not our legislation but my personal identity," says Radičová. "But I'm now seeing more hatred, which is very dangerous." .The recent overhaul of the police and judiciary has raised particular alarm bells given the country's record. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Slovakia made significant economic progress but also struggled to break corrupt linkages between business oligarchs, politicians, prosecutors and security forces. A court in neighbouring Austria found that Slovak intelligence officers were involved in the 1995 kidnapping of the son of Michal Kováč, Slovakia's first president.."Our secret service has done particularly dirty jobs since the 1990s and I really don't see this situation getting better now," says Radičová..This year, EU commissioner Věra Jourová, who is responsible for enforcing the rule of law, repeatedly warned that Brussels could intervene to defend judicial independence and the rights of Slovakia's media and NGOs. .The EU's conditionality mechanism allows Brussels to freeze the disbursement of funds if there is a risk that they could be misspent, which could impact billions of Slovakia's EU cohesion funds, as well as part of its pandemic recovery grants..Our secret service has done particularly dirty jobs since the 1990s and I really don't see this situation getting better now.But Brussels has so far refrained from imposing on Slovakia the kind of hefty financial penalties that Hungary and Poland received to force their governments to restore the rule of law. In return for disbursing €800mn this month, Brussels got Fico's lawmakers to amend their revised criminal code, but only the penalties for specific crimes involving EU funds. ."As a Czech citizen, I'm watching with concern what is happening in Slovakia," Jourová told a conference in Poland in August. "It's not only a matter of the brain but also of the heart and emotions, but as an EU official I also have to keep a cold head.".Some Fico opponents argue that Brussels should act swiftly to stop Slovakia's democratic backsliding. But after his liberal party came top in elections to the European parliament in June, opposition leader Šimečka stresses instead that Fico maintains a fragile coalition and could again be defeated at the polls. .Peter Weiss, who founded a post-communist leftwing party and gave the then young lawyer Fico his first opportunity to run for Parliament in 1992, says that Brussels cannot afford "a political decision to go to war" against Slovakia, which could risk driving Fico even closer to Orbán. .Fico is not yet fully in the Hungarian's camp on Ukraine. He has made several pro-Kremlin gestures and has criticised western sanctions against Russia, but he did not join Orbán last January in threatening to veto a €50bn EU aid package for Ukraine. He campaigned last year against military support to Kyiv, but has allowed private Slovak companies to send more than €100mn of weapons to Ukraine since taking office. .This month, he promised to stop Ukraine from joining Nato only a day before negotiating with his Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal about Slovakia's energy imports. After their meeting, Fico said Slovakia would "unconditionally" back Ukraine's EU candidacy..Slovakia is not back in the black hole once identified by Albright precisely because "we are now in the EU and Nato", Weiss says. "There is now a battle for a stronger democracy and rule of law, but it is a fight within a democratic framework, even if there are some dangerous things happening that I don't like." .Read also:.🔒 Orban's opposition to Ukraine aid strains EU and NATO relations🔒 EU grapples with Hungary's democratic backslide; Orban's illiberal agenda – Marc ChampionDiplomatic gambit: Putin tests waters for Ukraine talks with the US.© 2024 The Financial Times Ltd.

FT’s Big Read: The new face of European illiberalism

Related Stories