Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was among the headline speakers at CPAC Hungary 2025. On Thursday Fico delivered a keynote address in which he emphasized the importance of national sovereignty and the protection of national interests.
‘The practice of suppressing the sovereignty of individual Member States in the European Union cannot continue,’ the Slovak prime minister declared firmly, receiving resounding applause from the audience. According to Fico, the European Union, instead of assuming a genuine peace-building role and engaging in diplomatic efforts, is behaving aggressively in the context of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The Slovak leader asserted that there is a serious breach of international law underway, as Brussels seeks to silence any dissenting opinion ‘from the obligatory’. He also criticized German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s recent message to Slovakia and Hungary, which suggested that failure to align with Brussels on the Russian–Ukrainian conflict could result in punitive measures such as the suspension of EU funding and voting rights.
Fico stressed that no country should treat others in such a manner, regardless of its economic weight. The true strength of the European Union, he argued, lies in compromise, mutual respect, and the collective rejection of authoritarianism. According to him, punishing sovereign nations and courageous dissenters, advocating war instead of peace, and proclaiming a new Iron Curtain would mark the demise of the European project and lead to a large-scale military conflict. ‘This is not an EU vision I am willing to support,’ he concluded.
Fico described himself as a left-wing social democrat—‘not the Brussels kind,’ he noted. His primary objective, he said, is to safeguard the interests of Slovak citizens and to build a strong welfare state. He reaffirmed his commitment to a sovereign Slovak foreign policy that remains open to the world, and stated that he rejects the notion of Slovakia’s national identity and sovereignty being ‘dissolved’ into genderist, internationalist frameworks imposed by Brussels.
He also highlighted Slovakia’s constitutional amendments, which define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and noted that further amendments have been submitted to enshrine the principle that there are only two sexes—male and female—which would also be formalized in adoption laws.
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