Yet the former prime minister spearheads a new brand of Left-wing, anti-American populism that has become a powerful force in Central Europe since the war began. Perceptions that “the Americans occupy us” — as one MP in Fico’s Smer party evocatively put it — are shared with a similar groundswell of anti-Western opinion in the neighbouring Czech Republic.  

Yet Smer has been handed a chance to gain power thanks to the chaos which has engulfed Slovakia’s pro-EU, pro-Western forces. Personal grievances coupled with serious policy errors tore apart a four-party coalition formed after elections in 2020, leaving Fico to capitalise on heightened mistrust in establishment politics. Smer is expected to become the nation’s largest party after this month’s election, with an anticipated 20% of the vote.  

Whatever the specific makeup of the new government, if Smer is the largest party it will likely pursue a foreign policy similar to that of Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary. A halt to until-now generous Slovak arms shipments to Ukraine is Fico’s central electoral pledge, while the arrival on the scene of another Orbán-style government prepared to obstruct EU aid efforts for Ukraine would create a serious headache. That is particularly the case as Brussels struggles to win support for both short and long-term war funding commitments. 

Victory for Fico would also amplify Orbán’s scepticism about the overall Western narrative on Ukraine — a scepticism which the Hungarian Prime Minister recently conveyed to Western conservatives during an interview with Tucker Carlson. Orbán portrayed Ukraine’s attempts to win back the territories taken by Russia as ultimately hopeless and claimed that Donald Trump’s promise to end the war quickly makes him “the man who can save the Western world”. 

Like Trump in America and Orbán in Europe, Fico is hated with a passion by establishment forces. But in Slovakia, the pro-Western establishment itself has become so mistrusted that power may soon pass to a man intent on shattering what’s left of European unity on Ukraine. 

Immigration has become the single greatest public concern of the upcoming presidential election, with Democrats now in the position of calling for border security in their campaigns, a far cry from the fierce reaction to Donald Trump’s 2016 promise to “build the wall”. Trump, meanwhile, has promised “the largest deportation operation in American history” if he’s elected in November.

The US isn’t alone in its growing focus on migration: throughout Europe, anti-immigration sentiment has been growing for years.

In the UK, annual immigration has been rising significantly since 1994 and has approximately doubled since 2019. The Rwanda bill became law this week, serving to deport migrants with weak claims to asylum. The bill had slight net popularity last June, but a more recent poll found that scrapping the legislation was slightly more popular than pushing ahead with it. This shift may reflect the public’s weariness over the legislative process rather than a loss of appetite for deportations, however.

French President Emmanuel Macron came out against the legislation, calling it a betrayal of European values. Meanwhile, Macron has been pushing for immigration restrictions at home, supporting a bill that will speed up deportations, delay welfare benefits for migrants and make it more difficult for them to bring their families to France. He has also argued that the country has “an immigration problem”.

Annual immigration to the European Union from non-EU countries more than tripled from 2013-22, rising above five million migrants per year. The European Parliament voted in favour of rules this month to make it easier to deport asylum seekers who have misled authorities, who present a security risk or who do not have a legitimate need for international protection.

The measure received praise from German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has called for “large-scale” deportations of migrants whose asylum claims have been rejected. Germany is itself seeing a surge in popularity for its Right-wing AfD party, particularly among young people, thanks to its opposition to immigration.

Countries that have embraced mass migration in recent decades are now backtracking, largely in response to surges in crime. In Sweden, migrants are 2.5 times likelier to be registered as a crime suspect than those born to two Swedish parents, while those born in the country to non-native parents are 3.2 times as likely, according to government figures. Sweden already offers funding to help migrants repatriate to their countries of origin, and is considering ways to encourage more voluntary returns.

After decades of mass immigration, it is now becoming politically mainstream to support large-scale returns for migrants throughout much of the West. Passing the Rwanda bill and building the border wall in the US — still an incomplete project — have been uphill battles, but future migration crackdowns could look different.