Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said Tuesday that neutrality would be good for his country despite two decades of membership in the NATO military alliance.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has proposed a new spending framework that would increase the defense-spending target for alliance members from 2 percent to a combined total of 5 percent of GDP ahead of this month’s crunch summit in The Hague.
While he didn’t lay out a plan for exiting NATO, Fico took the opportunity at a roundtable event to bash the so-called military-industrial complex.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ll tell you that in these senseless times of armament, when arms companies are rubbing their hands together, just as pharmaceutical companies did during COVID, neutrality would suit Slovakia very well,” Fico responded to a question about the increase in defense spending, reported Aktuality.
The Slovak prime minister has been roundly criticized by European allies for his sympathetic posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has been waging full-scale war on Ukraine for more than three years.
Fico will further talk about Slovak neutrality with political party leaders Thursday. Slovakia has been a member of NATO since 2004.
Any defense-spending increase must be “reasonably spread out over time” and go toward dual-use programs, the Slovak prime minister said.
Opposition lawmakers and Slovak President Peter Pellegrini criticized Fico for the remarks about neutrality.
“Let’s not open the door to debates on topics that could threaten the security of the Slovak Republic, because the security of our country must be our priority,” Pellegrini said, adding that leaving NATO would be more expensive for Slovakia.
Pellegrini did, however, echo Fico’s sentiment on spreading out the spending increase “over as long a period as possible” and allocating a “significant portion” of additional defense spending toward dual-use projects.
The post NATO member Slovakia reckons neutrality would be good, actually appeared first on Politico.
