Foreign Policy
In foreign policy, Fico's government has faced controversies due to their affiliation with internationally isolated parties of Vladimír Mečiar and Jan Slota.
Compensating his lack of close political allies within the EU (the head of the Czech Social Democrats Jiri Paroubek being a notable exception), Fico has been actively strengthening relations with several non-EU countries such as Serbia and Russia. Slovakia modernised Russian MiG-fighters in Russia and did not buy new NATO-standard jets from the West. Additionally Fico accused Georgia of provoking Russia when attacking South Ossetia in 2008.
Fico is an opponent of the planned construction of new U.S. anti-ballistic missile and radar systems in military bases in neighbouring Czech Republic and Poland and one of the first steps upon taking the PM's office was a military pullout from Iraq. Fico opposed the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo, as a result of which Slovakia has not recognised Kosovo as a sovereign state.
Read more about this topic: Robert Fico
Famous quotes related to foreign policy:
“A régime which invented a biological foreign policy was obviously acting against its own best interests. But at least it obeyed its own particular logic.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“We are apt to say that a foreign policy is successful only when the country, or at any rate the governing class, is united behind it. In reality, every line of policy is repudiated by a section, often by an influential section, of the country concerned. A foreign minister who waited until everyone agreed with him would have no foreign policy at all.”
—A.J.P. (Alan John Percivale)
“Foreign policy is really domestic policy with its hat on.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
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