BRATISLAVA, July 18, (WEBNOVINY) — The most problematic neighbor of Slovakia currently is not Hungary, but Ukraine, says the head of Slovak diplomacy Miroslav Lajcak in the Slovak Parliament on Wednesday. “If somebody thought that our most troublesome neighbor is in the south, then it is necessary to turn attention to the east,” he stated at a meeting on Wednesday of the Parliamentary Foreign Committee. It voted to recommend to the plenum to acknowledge the document on Slovakia’s foreign policy direction in 2012 from the ministry’s workroom.
According to Lajcak, Ukraine will hold parliamentary elections on October 28, while no elections in Hungary have ever been as important for the future of Slovakia as those upcoming in Ukraine. „It is in our interest to keep Ukraine in our civilization space,” underscored Lajcak. In a debate the opposition KDH MP Jozef Miklosko remarked that he lacks more information of Slovakia’s stance to Ukraine and the situation around ex-PM Yulia Tymoshenko who is serving a seven-year prison sentence. Miklosko made already one attempt to persuade Parliament to express deep concerns over the jailed Tymoshenko but his suggestion failed to earn sufficient support. Lajcak answered that Slovakia is not checking who is guilty and who not. “What Slovakia is interested in is the judicial system and its independence,” he added. Slovakia will develop a critical dialogue with Ukraine. “We refused to turn our back on Ukraine and we will not do so now,” he stated.
The discussed document states that “Ukraine’s approximation to the EU is in Slovakia’s long-term interest and therefore we will be an active co-author of this vector of the EU’s external policy.“ The department however also wants to thoroughly watch the internal development in Ukraine concentrating mainly on its respect for democratic standards.
Last October, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko was sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office in relation to a 2009 gas deal with Russia that she brokered, a case regarded widely in the West as politically orchestrated.
SITA