Slovakia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Juraj Blanár has laid off more than 40 career diplomats and foreign affairs staff in an unprecedented makeover of the country’s highly rated diplomatic service.

The move is seen as part of the left-right government's reorientation of the country’s foreign policy from a staunch backer of Ukraine to a Kremlin-pleasing stance, and has been fiercely attacked by the opposition.

“The main responsibility for this state [of affairs] is borne by the government and Minister Juraj Blanár, whose only goal is to break the professionality of the [diplomatic] service,” stated former foreign minister Ivan Korčok, who recently joined the opposition centrist Progressive Slovakia (PS) party.

“The result is frustration and departure of many talented diplomats, while those who stay fall into apathy,” Korčok added in a public statement in which he chastised the government of populist Prime Minister Robert Fico for “the greatest change in the foreign policy orientation of Slovakia since 1998” when the 1990’s era populist strongman Vladimír Mečiar was ousted from power.

The Slovak diplomatic service is highly respected in Europe, and the country’s diplomats have also gone on to successful careers in international institutions. Slovak diplomat Maroš Šefčovič is one of the most experienced members of the European Commission, heading the portfolio of Trade and Economic Security and Interinstitutional Relations and Transparency.

Korčok made the statement together with PS vice chair and legislator, Tomáš Valášek, on November 29, and also expressed support for the remaining talented diplomats and called on them to “write the truth and not to succumb to auto-censorship”.  

Blanár rejected the PS' criticism in a statement for the country’s press agency TASR, denying there is a push for “auto-censorship on employees”. The statement also denies that laying off of staff is taking place and claims that the departures are part of the public finance consolidation measures coordinated with the Ministry of Finance, adding that reductions concerned “only 47” persons instead of more than 110.  

“Of these, part retired, others left after mutual agreement and layoffs in reality concern only 20 persons,” Blanár’s statement reads.      

Blanár’s appointment to the helm of the ministry marked a break from the traditional government practice for much of the past two decades  – including Fico’s previous cabinets – of appointing senior career diplomats to head the ministry.

Blanár, who lacked significant foreign policy experience before his appointment, has called for peace negotiations with the Kremlin. In September he held talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, their second meeting this year.

One of the recently fired senior diplomats, Ivan Novotný, told DennikN in an interview published on December 2 that Blanár was trying to conceal his meeting with Lavrov even from his Ministry’s diplomats.

“At the same time, Blanár is bringing recent graduates of Moscow’s elite MGIMO to his Ministry,” Victor Breiner, founder and editor-in-chief of the Slovak Media Monitor (SMM) and former state official at the Ministry of Defence told bne Intellinews in an interview in Bratislava, pointing to the comments Blanár's predecessor Miroslav Wlachovský made for the country’s media at the time of the interview.

Wlachovský said that Slovakia is “losing professionals who have dedicated decades to building Slovakia’s position in NATO and the EU,” and that experienced professionals are being replaced with graduates from Russian institutions like the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO) and Saint Petersburg State University.

“These institutions are, of course, renowned for cultivating professionals for Russian foreign policy and intelligence services,” Breiner told bne Intellinews, adding that we are also witnessing a security overhaul in the country’s diplomacy in line with other sweeping staff changes seen across the ministries and public institutions pushed by Fico’s government.  

Earlier this year, regional outlets, including the Vsquare media platform, reported that European intelligence services began to curtail information sharing with Slovakia’s intelligence service SIS in response to the staff changes Fico’s cabinet launched shortly after taking power.  

In August, Slovakia's President Peter Pellegrini appointed Pavol Gašpar as chief of SIS in what the country’s liberal journalists view as another instance of tightening the Smer party grip on SIS.   

Gašpar is the son of criminally prosecuted police ex-president Tibor Gašpar, now a legislator and vice chair of the parliament for Fico’s Smer party. In September, Slovak opposition legislators also accused SIS of possessing the notorious Israeli spyware Pegasus. SIS has denied the claims it possesses Pegasus, describing this as “disinformation”.