German MEP Warns Slovakia Following Orban's Path, Calls for EU Action Against Fico Government

Daniel Freund, a German Green Party member of the European Parliament who has long monitored rule of law violations in Hungary, warned that Slovakia is heading down a similar path as Viktor Orban's government. Freund called for the European Commission to immediately trigger the conditionality mechanism to protect European taxpayers' money from being funneled into private interests and to avoid repeating past mistakes. The mechanism, introduced after years of concerns about democratic backsliding in Hungary and Poland, allows the EU to suspend funding to member states that violate rule of law principles. Slovakia is currently governed by a coalition led by Robert Fico's Smer-SD party, which returned to power in 2023 after campaigning on a platform critical of EU sanctions against Russia and Western support for Ukraine.