Dhe election of Peter Pellegrini as the future president of Slovakia has been welcomed by the government in neighboring Hungary. “A further confirmation of the forces that are for sovereignty and peace,” wrote Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó in his congratulations to Pellegrini, who clearly won the runoff election at the weekend against former Foreign Minister Ivan Korčok.
However, critical tones were heard from German politics. The CDU foreign policy expert Norbert Röttgen found that Pellegrini and his ally Slovakian Prime Minister Fico “openly sympathize” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In his opinion, this is just as incompatible with membership in the European Union as the attitude of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is “Putin's Trojan horse in the EU”.
Anton Hofreiter is also threatening to move towards Slovakia
“The EU must not and cannot tolerate this any longer,” said Röttgen to the Funke media group. Anyone who “sides with the aggressor does not belong in the EU”. Green Party European politician Anton Hofreiter said it was important “that the Slovak government receives a clear warning signal from Berlin and Brussels.” If Fico and Pellegrini “take the ax to the Slovak constitutional state and open the floodgates to corruption, no more money will be allowed to flow from EU funds.”
After his election victory, Pellegrini assured the Slovak citizens that “Slovakia is fully anchored in the EU and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. I guarantee that. And no one has any intention of changing the course of our foreign policy.” However, in his opinion, Slovakia needs to be more sovereign in these groupings. You have to look in all directions. He wants an end to the conflict in Ukraine and the search for a way to restore relations with the Russian Federation. “Of course only when this murderous conflict is over,” he added.
1.4 million voters voted for Pellegrini on Saturday (53 percent). Only the first directly elected Slovak president, Rudolf Schuster, received more votes in 1999.