Slovakia faces cut-off of Russian gas pipeline supplies

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

54% : "The problem is that following the war, Germans, Italians and French, which were the three largest clients before the war, stopped purchasing it," changing the energy landscape in Europe dramatically and rendering the return of the pre-war order a "chimera".Smer party relies on anti-establishment electorateDuleba argues that for Fico there is an important political dimension to his effort to maintain Russian supplies.
52% : Russian provided some 35-40% of EU gas imports before its invasion of Ukraine, a proportion that has now halved, with some 15 bcm being exported to the EU in 2023.
50% : Although Fico and Smer once again demonstrated their close ties with private businesses by leaving room for commercial military supplies to Ukraine, Fico still needs to use radical rightwing and anti-Ukraine rhetoric to appeal to his anti-establishment electorate, which is also targeted by the neo-fascist Republika and far-right SNS.
50% : "Smer has not been a left-wing party for some time," Zala continued, adding that today, "Smer is a nationalist-conservative party mixing the nostalgia after [the pre-1989 communist] old regime with Slovak People's Party rhetoric, thanks to which it can attract neo-Stalinists and Hlinka supporters alike".Duleba added that today, Fico's domestic preferences rely on a political polarisation, which mobilises the anti-establishment segment of the country's electorate and which leans towards anti-Western rhetoric and nationalist sentiment.
40% : He has regularly criticised EU sanctions on Russia and aid to Ukraine, and has said he would veto any move to grant the country Nato membership, though he has yet to vote against the EU line on Ukraine in Brussels.

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