Petr Šabata: What’s going to President Peter Pellegrini convey to Czech-Slovak relations

It’s all the tougher to deduce how his presidency shall be mirrored in Czech-Slovak relations. The excellent news is that Pellegrini will meet International Minister Jan Lipavský in Bratislava on Tuesday, and on June 26 he’ll make his first international go to to Prague to see Petr Pavlo. However that is the place certainties finish.

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Since 2000, Pellegrini has been a member of the Smer social gathering for twenty years and a detailed collaborator of Robert Fico, even throughout the instances when Slovakia become a “mafia state” underneath his rule, as ex-president Andrej Kiska known as it.

After the homicide of Ján Kuciak, Robert Fico needed to go away underneath public stress, and the rather more acceptable Peter Pellegrini took over as head of the cupboard in March 2018. Two years later, he even left Fico utterly and based the Hlas social gathering – i.e. “respectable path”.

Pellegrini’s relationship with Fico

This a part of Pellegrini’s political biography is certainly darkish – his participation within the cronyism and corruption of Smer governments is unquestionable – however with a hopeful consequence. Pellegrini minimize himself off from Fico with a plan to construct a severe social democratic social gathering.

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However. After early parliamentary elections final fall, at the moment’s president and his Hlas, along with the extremist Slovak Nationwide Celebration, turned a part of Robert Fico’s coalition authorities, which instantly launched an indiscriminate assault on the rule of regulation, civil society, public media…

And some months later, within the marketing campaign earlier than the election of the president, within the ultimate he shamelessly ran for the voter Štefan Harabin, who praises the Russian aggression in opposition to Ukraine and wouldn’t go to Prague on his first journey overseas, as a result of in accordance with him the Czech authorities helps Ukrainian fascists, however to Moscow.

However. After the assassination of Robert Fico, Pellegrini didn’t hesitate to face by the aspect of President Zuzana Čaputová and collectively they known as for reconciliation. That was a statesmanlike gesture from each of them.

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So who’s Peter Pellegrini? A pragmatist, a person with out values ​​and glued attitudes. With the reward of showing plausible, even when not telling the reality. It’s tough to think about how he faces the anti-democratic steps of Fico’s authorities, which he helped to advertise a couple of months in the past.

Czech-Slovak relations are secure floor for Pellegrini. In his inaugural speech, which was additionally listened to by Miloš Zeman and Andrej Babiš on the ceremony in Bratislava, he restricted himself to the compulsory sentence: “We’re linked to the Czech nation actually by household ties.” He’ll get together with Petr Pavl and others. And for the Czech aspect, there may be positively a possibility to create good private relations with him.

His rhetoric shall be a far cry from that of Fico’s poisonous one, though Pellegrini additionally spoke out in opposition to the choice of Petr Fiala’s cupboard to postpone joint authorities conferences.

However this nice accomplice has one limitation: he shall be pleasant so long as issues are good for him at residence. And figuring out for Pellegrini’s whole presidency shall be his relationship with Roberto Fico. It is a elementary uncertainty: even in Bratislava, nobody is aware of precisely what these two political matadors from the darkish days of Smer find out about one another.

The creator is the editor-in-chief of the each day Právo