The leftist Smer party of the Slovak populist Prime Minister is set to remain isolated in the European Parliament after Fico slammed the European Socialists & Democrats as “having nothing in common” with left-wing politics and social democracy.

Fico made the comments in a YouTube video shortly after a veteran Smer politician and a leader of Smer’s five MEPs, Monika Benova, told media that she “won’t be talking to socialists any further” over Smer’s joining of their European Parliament fraction, as bne IntelliNews reported last week. 

The Party of European Socialists (PES), the umbrella group for Europe’s Socialist parties, suspended Smer as well as its key coalition partner, the centre-left Hlas party, after Smer and Hlas formed a ruling coalition with far-right SNS last October.   

Fico said he conditions Smer’s return to the Socialist grouping with what he terms a “sovereign” stance on the war in Ukraine, migration, EU veto and ethical issues.

The Smer-led coalition axed the state military aid for Ukraine shortly after making a comeback to power and the party leaders maintained aggressive anti-immigration rhetoric. Fico has repeatedly slammed Brussels for “gender ideology” and openly cosied up to the Hungarian radical right-wing strongman Viktor Orban a hardened political stance criticised by the opposition and liberal media for serving as a cover to pursue a power grab at home.

Speculations in the Czech and Slovak media have previously ensued that Smer is on the way into the “Patriots for Europe” grouping set up by Orban, together with Austrian far-right leader of FPO party Herbert Kickl and Czech billionaire populist and ex-PM Andrej Babis.

Babis has been a staunch backer of Fico and his Smer party and is eying a return to power in Prague at next year’s parliamentary elections, closely observing Fico’s success in Bratislava last year.

Fico founded Smer in the early 2000s as initially a “third-way party” but gradually took over a large part of the traditionally strong socialist electorate in Slovakia while maintaining nationalist and conservative messages blended with nostalgia after the communist regime in the then Czechoslovakia which ended in 1989.

"Robert Fico has for long years relied primarily on promising "certainties," social packages and nostalgic talks about the previous regime," commented editor at DennikN daily Vladimir Snidl, adding that after the 2018 murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak Fico abandoned attempts to appeal pro-EU voters. 

"After the murder and mainly during the Covid, he [Fico] reoriented to a completely different target [group]. One which listens to conspiracy theories and hate [narratives] - against media, the West, liberals, NGOs, minorities, etc.," Snidl said.     

In a separate message, Fico also stated that “if the attacker on Donald Trump knew Slovak, he would just need to read [liberal outlets] DennikN, SME or Aktuality.sk, to get a taste ‘to get things in order’ with disobedient former President of USA” in yet another one of Fico’s attacks on media, which he has referred to as “enemy media.”

Fico, who survived the assassination attempt in mid-May after being shot multiple times, called the shooting at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania, a “copy-paste scenario,” adding that “political opponents of Donald Trump are trying to lock him [Trump] up and when this doesn’t work out, then they whip up the public so much until some poor chap grabs a weapon.”

Fico has faced criminal investigation himself in the recent past while other high-ranking Smer officials are still investigated.  

After making several public appearances in the last two weeks Fico declared “I am back” with a renewed aggressive style of politics which many analysts and commentators have blamed for deepening the divisions cutting through Slovak politics and society, which is also proliferated by disinformation and pro-Russian propaganda.