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Soriek  7mo ago (text post)   969 thread views

Transnational Thursdays 21

This is a weekly thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or IR history. I usually start off with coverage of some current events from a mix of countries I follow personally and countries I think the forum might be interested in. Feel free to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the the Ukraine War, or even just whatever you’re reading. Megathread for the Israel-Palestine conflict is here though if you want to talk about it in this thread as well feel free.

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Slovakia

Former populist PM Robert Fico seems poised to make a comeback to the position, having seemingly cemented a coalition. The alliance would bring together SMER, or the Social Democrats, with the left wing Hlas Party and the right wing Slovak National Party, for I guess a general populist platform. This election has gotten a lot of international attention partially because Fico is viewed in a similar illberal light as Hungary’s Fidesz and Poland’s PiS (who are up in their own election this saturday), but also because of Fico’s pro-Russian stance and promise to cut aid to Ukraine (though one of his coalition partners, Hlas, is opposed to this). As far as I can tell this doesn't have any implications for broader European funding but would represent the first NATO country to take such a stance, and may move forward the general fatigue we see countries (ie the US) display towards funding the war. @georgioz may have more light to shed.

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