Slovakia PM assassination try at delicate time for Europe

Slovakia might seem a small, rather insignificant country, but it stands at the political crossroads of Europe – a place where ancient conflicts between East and West are laid bare.

So Wednesday’s shooting of the Slovak prime minister, Robert Fico, has inevitably sent political shockwaves far from his homeland.

Not since 1914 and the shooting of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo has an assassination been attempted at such a delicate time in European politics.

That, too, had taken place in a seeming backwater – in that case, an obscure corner of the Balkans.

But the ensuing domino effect and the ultimate horrors of the Great War that resulted are easily remembered. Political violence can all-too-readily lead to destructive chaos.

Only independent since 1993, Slovakia’s short life saw it join the European Union in 2004. But the confident expectation then that Europe would be a ‘continent of peace’ now looks empty – punctured by Russia‘s bloody onslaught on Slovakia’s immediate neighbour, Ukraine.

It is Slovakia’s position as a frontline state – both for the European Union and for Nato – that makes this small nation so suddenly important.

Western aid flowing through Slovakia has been vital for Ukraine’s defence against Putin’s aggression.

But weapons from Slovakia’s own arms industry have been important, too, and here history plays an unexpected part.

Much of Slovakia’s arsenal goes back to Soviet-era designs – just like Ukraine’s. And that has meant that Slovak stocks of everything from bullets and tank rounds to spare parts for fighter jets fit seamlessly into what Ukrainians need.

Or did until very recently. The return to power of Robert Fico as Slovak prime minister last October has changed things dramatically – and damaged the unity of the EU and Nato in their backing for Ukraine.

That’s because, like his political ally Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, Robert Fico is an outspoken critic of Western support for Kyiv. Fico ran a pro-Putin, anti-American and anti-EU campaign for his re-election.

And instead of sanctions, he is calling on the West to enter talks with president Putin to bring the conflict to an end.

Now Ukraine and its allies fear that Fico is hoping to back Kyiv into a corner – by blocking EU aid and forcing the Ukrainians to accept the demands of the Kremlin.

Why has Fico broken ranks with the majority of EU and Nato states? Some people look back to his youth in Czechoslovakia – the Soviet-bloc state that once included Slovakia.

Fico joined the Communist Party at the age of 22 in 1986, just three years before the Soviet-backed regime collapsed.

But like many young and ambitious people 40 years ago, he quickly dumped the party and set off on his own post-Communist odyssey, hitting on the idea of a social democrat-style party called Smer – or ‘Direction’ – 25 years ago. Popular opinion in Slovakia has been changing, however, and Fico is a populist.

He has been sensitive to how many of his fellow Slovaks fear the spread of war from Ukraine. They well remember the Prague Spring, the Russian invasion in 1968, but see appeasing Putin – not defying him – as the way forward.

Fico’s mix of grabbing EU subsidies for Slovakia while opposing its plan to farm out migrants to countries like his has also played well with the voters.

His popularity should not be underestimated.

Only in April, Fico’s choice for president, Peter Pellegrini, defeated the opposition candidate and he takes office next month.

But it is Fico’s courting of Putin and China that has worried the West most.

Slovakia is one of the EU’s smaller members. Usually in Brussels, the big boys – France and Germany – get their way.

But small states like Slovakia have a veto in foreign policy matters and, along with Viktor Orban in Hungary, Fico has formed an ‘Awkward Squad’ – sceptical about Ukraine, relatively friendly towards Russia. Furthermore, fears that Russia is trying to destabilise Western societies are growing, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak warned on Monday. Sabotage and assassination cannot be ruled out on British soil.

The risk of more attacks after Fico’s shooting is serious, the more so today as Europe seems febrile, much as it was in the early decades of the last century.

We are approaching the election season across the continent, including polls for the European Parliament in the coming months.

Political leaders from presidents to journeymen politicians will be out and about.

If there has long been the risk of flying eggs or even the odd punches, now fear of knives and guns will haunt campaigning politicians everywhere.

It took only one month after the killing of Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914, before the universal horror at his murder gave way, first to naked international rivalry – and, then on July 28, to the catastrophe of the First World War.

Whatever the motives of yesterday’s would-be assassin, the fact that a European head of government can be gunned down in this way has put every European nation – as well as the West’s great rivals, Russia and China – on red alert.

Still little more than a century distant, the lessons of the Great War are screaming at us. The risk of wider contagion is very real.