Monitor: Groehling: Fico Made Political Mistake by Not Meeting NATO Head Rutte

(Joj 24, 'Politika 24', February 23) Not meeting with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte during Rutte's visit of Slovakia was Prime Minister Robert Fico's (Smer-SD) political mistake, opposition's SaS chair Branislav Groehling stated on JOJ 24's discussion programme 'Politika 24' (Politics 24) on Sunday. Groehling pointed out that instead of meeting with the visiting NATO Secretary-General, Fico chose to leave for the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in the United States instead. Groehling perceives Fico's participation in CPAC "amusing". "It was amusing to me but then also a bit sad too, to see the self-proclaimed socialist Robert Fico, the pre-eminent socialist of the Central Europe, go to a conservative summit, one of the chief aims of which is the fight against socialism," he said, adding that he was startled also by the fact that aside from President Peter Pellegrini no one met with Rutte in Slovakia. The SaS head reiterated his call to Fico to start dealing with domestic problems of the Slovak people. As for domestic politics, Groehling declared that he cannot envision political cooperation between SaS and Voice-SD, accentuating that this view is also shared by the party leadership and rank-and-file members. Groehling wants to build SaS as a strong partner for Progressive Slovakia and KDH. He added that SaS' initiative, the Centre-right Bloc, aims to unite centre-right leaders, including former ones who steered Slovakia into the EU and NATO. mf