The former Prime Minister of Slovakia promised to make efforts for negotiations on Ukraine

Former Prime Minister of Slovakia, leader of the Social Democracy Direction (SMER) party Robert Fico promised to make every effort to begin negotiations to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

“[Конфликт на] Ukraine is a huge tragedy for everyone. If SMER forms a government, we will do everything on the EU platform to start peace negotiations as soon as possible,” Fico said at a press conference (quote according to RIA Novosti).

Fico’s center-left party, SMER, won the parliamentary elections in Slovakia with 22.94% of the vote. The liberal Progressive Slovakia party took second place with 17.96% of the votes. Third place was taken by the Social Democratic Party “Voice” (HLAS) with 15.22%.

The leader of Progressive Slovakia, Michal Šimečka, said that he still sees the possibility of organizing a ruling coalition, and his party will do everything possible to prevent SMER from forming a government.

Fico was Prime Minister of Slovakia from 2006-2010 and 2012-2018. He is the founder of SMER, which was created to oppose the reformist center-right cabinet of ministers.

As before stated Russian Senator Alexey Pushkov, SMER’s victory is an alarming signal for “anti-Russian circles” in Europe. The senator noted that now everything will depend on whether Fico will be able to create a government in a coalition with another party, since “his own seats in parliament will not be enough for him.”