Caputova: Slovakia's Foreign Policy Direction Must Be Matter of Consensus

Bratislava, March 19 (TASR) - The basic foreign policy direction of the country mustn't become an issue affected by an internal political and party struggle; it must remain a matter of cross-party consensus, President Zuzana Caputova said at the 22nd Foreign and European Policy Review Conference of the Slovak Republic. In Caputova's opinion, the ability to engage in dialogue, even if we participants don't agree on everything, is an essential necessity for a well-functioning foreign policy and democracy itself. According to the president, this kind of dialogue is gradually disappearing from Slovak foreign policy. "It's being replaced by the thesis of a policy oriented towards the east, west, north and south, in which, however, our Western engagement is gradually becoming weaker. The more accommodating are the words and gestures of our government's representatives to the Russian regime, which has put Slovakia on the list of enemies, the harsher the expressions we hear from them with respect to our allies," Caputova noted, adding that the future will show whether Slovakia will emerge from this ordeal as a proud, truly sovereign country or whether it'll lose prestige and partners. The president noted that the polarisation of Slovak society is increasingly related to the foreign policy axis. "It's as if we as a society are slowly losing consensus on where we belong in terms of values and foreign policy," she opined. In this vein, she warned that fewer and fewer people perceive Slovakia's membership of NATO and the EU positively, calling the two organisations the most prosperous and secure clubs in the world. According to the president, the reasons for the polarisation and splitting of society have been caused by a wave of crises and social media. "It's the social media that has demonstrably become the main platform for the spread of misinformation and propaganda in our country, to which our country is exposed disproportionately more than similar European countries," she said, adding that she's long been calling for the adoption of appropriate measures at both Slovak and European level. With regard to the war in Ukraine, the president said that it's a struggle for universal values and therefore, even if everyone wants peace, just calling for it isn't enough. In her view, a healthy realism is to support Ukraine to keep the Russian threat as far away from Slovakia's borders as possible. If Ukraine agrees to peace talks, she said, it must sit at the negotiating table in a strong position, and only international support can ensure this. "A just peace and military assistance to Ukraine are by no means mutually exclusive," she stressed. zel/mcs/mf