Committee Supervising SIS Didn't Discuss Pellegrini's Trip to Moscow in 2020

Bratislava, 15 April (TASR) - Members of the parliamentary committee supervising the Slovak Intelligence Service (SIS) didn't discuss on Wednesday the issue of potential election interference in connection with then-premier Peter Pellegrini's 2020 trip to Russia. The agenda of an extraordinary meeting of the committee, which was initiated by opposition MP Frantisek Majersky (Christian Democrats/KDH), wasn't approved. According to committee vice-chairman Peter Suca (Smer-SD), who currently chairs the committee, there was no election interference by Russia or Hungary at that time. "The MPs decided not to approve the committee's agenda, so the meeting didn't take place, and I see this whole thing as a personal move by Frantisek Majersky in relation to the municipal elections. There's nothing else to it," Suca told reporters. Committee member Richard Gluck (Smer-SD) added that the current opposition came to power after the 2020 elections, and the authorities could have investigated this suspicion, but nothing of the sort happened, so it's pointless to address it now. Majersky considers the media reports about Pellegrini's visit to Russia to be very serious. "We wanted to ask the [SIS] director whether the Slovak Intelligence Service had this information and how it handled it. But, of course, as is usually the case with this coalition, we aren't receiving any information," he stated, referring to media reports that Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto allegedly arranged Pellegrini's trip to Moscow. According to the reports in the media, Szijjarto, at the request of incumbent Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, reportedly told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that it was "of key importance" for Hungary that the then-coalition should continue in Slovakia and that receiving then premier Peter Pellegrini in Moscow would "greatly help him to win the election". Pellegrini told TASR back in March that he participated in a routine meeting in 2020 and wouldn't allow himself to be drawn in any way into the pre-election campaign in Hungary or related activities. The opposition criticised the trip, alleging Russian interference in the Slovak election. am/df