Brussels – After a two-year suspension, the European Socialists will permanently expel from their ranks SMER, the party of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico and Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič. The Party of European Socialism (PSE), which brings together the progressive and social-democratic forces of the Old Continent (including the Italian PD and PSI), will have to formalise the decision at the upcoming Congress in Amsterdam scheduled for 16-18 October.
The political decision is irreversible and has been maturing for quite some time now, thanks to Prime Minister Robert Fico‘s constant blows to the foundations of liberal democracy. The national-populist leader, re-elected for a fourth term as head of the executive in 2023, is ruling in an increasingly authoritarian manner.
The compression of civil rights and freedoms of expression, assembly, and peaceful protest—which
have resulted in a gradual erosion of the rule of law in the central European country—has been compounded in recent months by a political crisis that, on some occasions, seemed to be about to paralyse Slovak democracy, with popular demonstrations heavily attended and the opposition on the warpath.
But what has increasingly embarrassed the socialist leadership has been Fico’s rash moves on foreign policy. On the one hand, there is the very close personal connection with Vladimir Putin: the strongman from Bratislava has already met the tsar three times in the past year, for example, before last Christmas and at ceremonies on Red Square for the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany.
Among other things, this proximity has had a direct bearing on relations with Ukraine. Fico’s Slovakia, like the Hungary of his fellow Viktor Orbán, regularly puts itself
sideways whenever the Twenty-Seven have to impose new sanctions against the Kremlin (or renew existing ones), but also when it comes to supporting the Kyiv resistance.
Officially, the reasons have to do with Bratislava’s and Budapest’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels, especially oil and gas: the two governments claim that Ukraine’s actions jeopardise their energy security. This is despite Brussels having long since asked chancelleries to proceed swiftly to meet the ambitious goal of a complete phase-out from Moscow’s energy by 2027.
I HAVE A SERIOUS MESSAGE FOR THE UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT
Greetings from China, where evening has already fallen. I feel a sense of second-hand shame when I see what our spiritual homeless people from the opposition are doing in Slovakia in connection with this foreign trip.
The… pic.twitter.com/1HxReQvfPX#
— Robert Fico (@RobertFicoSVK) September 2, 2025
On the other hand, Fico has also recently approached the Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In early September, the Slovak premier was in Beijing, the only EU member in the tribune of honour that celebrated the anniversary of the 1945 victory in Tiananmen Square. There, as well as with the host, the prime minister also met again with Putin, collecting his compliments for Bratislava’s “independent foreign policy.”
Together with the other Slovak social democratic party HLAS-SD, SMER had already been suspended from the ESSP in October 2023 as a result of the formation of the coalition government
currently in power in Bratislava, which includes the ultra-nationalist right-wing SNS. Since then, MEPs from these parties no longer sit in the ranks of the Socialists in the EU Parliament (S&D) but in the group of non-attached members (Ni). Apparently, however, HLAS-SD should remain suspended even after the Amsterdam congress, since the expulsion would only affect SMER.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
