President Uninterested in Triggering Gov't Crisis or Forming Caretaker Cabinet

(STVR, 'O 5 minut 12', December 15) The coalition itself must find a way to arrange mutual relations so that Slovakia doesn't face a government crisis, President Peter Pellegrini said on STVR's discussion programme 'O 5 minut 12' (Five Minutes to Twelve) on Sunday. At the same time, the head of the state denied that he himself or his office would give a pretext for the government's destabilisation. "I don't engage in, think of or want to provoke a government crisis and I'm not interested in appointing a caretaker government, either," stressed the president. "I have enough other things to do than organising a coup in the governing coalition," noted Pellegrini. Pellegrini described Saturday's (December 14) statements by Slovak National Party (SNS) chairman Andrej Danko, indicating such intentions on the president's part, as "imagination in which Mr. chairman lives". He believes that it is Danko himself who should focus his actions and behaviour on maintaining the stability of the governing coalition. The president also denied Danko's statements regarding bad relations between him and Premier Robert Fico (Smer-SD). "We have an absolutely standard communication," he said. Concerning the conflict in Ukraine, the president hopes that all the parties involved will meet around the negotiating table soon. "However, if we want to be realistic, there's need to say that no one normally thinking in Europe thinks today that it will be possible to establish peace without the territorial losses on the part of Ukraine," he said. Pellegrini also put the announced visit by Premier Fico in Moscow during the celebrations of the 80th anniversary of the end of the WWII into the context of the potential development of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the overall geopolitical situation. "We'll see under what circumstances this trip will take place. If he goes there, I view it first and foremost as honouring the millions of victims that the then Soviet Union sacrificed for the freedom of Slovakia as well, not as support for the current regime," he said. Meanwhile, he views the parliamentary delegation's trip to the Russian Duma scheduled for the beginning of the year as a useless gesture that will bring nothing to Slovakia. Pellegrini characterised his first six months in the office as enriching, but at the same time demanding from the emotional, psychological and physical viewpoints. He said that he still has a couple of meetings on his pre-Christmas agenda, including the summit of V4 (Visegrad Four - Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) presidents in Poland on Monday (December 16). ko