Intelligence services in Europe have begun to restrict information they share with their Slovak counterpart, an investigative website focusing on Central European affairs VSquare reported.

VSquare wrote in its latest coverage of developments in Slovakia that the European intelligence community is responding to the changes in public administration introduced by the populist left cabinet of Robert Fico, including the mulled appointment of former police head Tibo Gaspar to head the Slovak Information Service (SIS).

“Several European sources from the security and intelligence community confirmed to ICJK.sk and VSquare that multiple allied intelligence services had already stopped sharing more sensitive information on the war in Ukraine and counter-intelligence matters concerning Russia and China with Slovakia”, VSquare wrote.

Slovak intelligence could follow the fate of its Hungarian counterpart, which, under the influence of the ruling Fidesz party of the country’s strongman Viktor Orban, found itself in isolation in the European intelligence community.

Fico assumed the post of prime minister for the fourth time last October after his leftist populist Smer formed a cabinet with centre-right Hlas and far-right SNS.  

It came after an aggressive campaign in which Fico hardened his rhetoric and adopted Kremlin talking points on the war in Ukraine, blaming Kyiv for allegedly being responsible for the war.

Fico’s cabinet had also axed state military aid to Ukraine, fired top police officers and is currently pushing sweeping changes in the judiciary and the criminal code, which the EU and the opposition criticise as threatening the rule of law in Slovakia.

Just recently, Fico’s cabinet relied on its narrow majority in the Slovak National Council (Parliament) to break the presidential veto on the so-called “competencies” law aimed at changes in the public institutions, which would give more power to the cabinet over Statistical Office, Healthcare Surveillance Authority as well as SIS and the Regulatory Office for Network Industries (USRO).

“This legislation is a very dangerous proposal, which highjacks independent institutions, such as the Statistical Office and Healthcare Surveillance Authority, and at the same time paves the way for Tibor Gaspar to become the director of the Slovak Information Service”, Michal Simecka, Chairman of the opposition leading party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, told Slovak media earlier this month.

Gaspar was the police president during the Smer 2012-18 era and is now a Smer MP. He was forced to step down as police chief following the mass demonstrations ignited by the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancé Martina Kusnirova, and he now faces a criminal investigation, accusing Gaspar of bribery and participating in running a criminal network of  oligarch and Gaspar’s relative Norbert Bodor while heading the police. Gaspar is also accused of facilitating illegal surveillance of journalists, including the late Jan Kuciak.

Last month, VSquare also reported that Bodor is suing the Netherlands for €4mn in response to the Dutch authority’s shutdown of a bank it branded as fake.

The case links Bodor family to Cypriot shell company Saxian, which in the 2010s “owned a fifth of the shares of [Czecho-Slovak investment group] Penta polyclinics”, Vsquare reported in December.  

It also recalled that at this time, Bodor claimed he influenced the daily newspaper Novy Cas in his encrypted communications with fraudster Marian Kocner, whose girlfriend, Alena Zsuzsova, was sentenced for masterminding the murder of  Kuciak and  Kusnirova.

VSquare and Jan Kuciak Investigative Centre (ICJK.sk) have been analysing the extensive communication from Kocner’s communication devices, including the communication between Kocner and Bodor.