Ukraine faces decisive months ahead as key allies gear up for crunch elections. While early presidential campaigning in the US and a looming general election in Poland will grab the international headlines, a snap election in Slovakia on 30 September may prove every bit as consequential. 

With Robert Fico — Slovakia’s former prime minister and one of the West’s most outspoken critics of the Ukrainian war effort — poised to win the vote, a change of government in Bratislava could have a profound effect on EU policymaking. Fico has promised that if his party makes it into government “we will not send a single bullet to Ukraine,” proudly proclaiming that “I allow myself to have a different opinion to that of the United States” on the war.  

Fico has also claimed on the campaign trail that “war always comes from the West and peace from the East,” and that “what is happening today is unnecessary killing, it is the emptying of warehouses to force countries to buy more American weapons.” Such statements have resulted in him being blacklisted by Kyiv as a spreader of Russian propaganda.  

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. 

The Covid Inquiry has been deeply flawed in its exposure of the Government’s response to the pandemic. Its latest report calls for an increase to the current £120,000 limit payable under the vaccine-compensation scheme, and for the process to be hastened. The report also proposes an adjustment to the current minimum level of vaccine-induced disability of 60%. These are all welcome findings. But there is a glaring omission here: the Inquiry fails to engage with the underlying ethical breach of the Government’s vaccine mandate campaign.

The argument advanced by the Inquiry for compensation is that the vaccine was recommended by public authorities, who therefore have a duty to those who have been adversely affected. However, the UK authorities did not just recommend the vaccine: they used fear and shame to pressure the public into taking it, going against basic principles of public health. Much of this is laid out in the Inquiry report, yet it inexplicably absolves the Government of wrongdoing.

Take the example of the 81 tragic deaths from thrombosis caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine. The report lays out how, despite having credible evidence that some deaths had likely been caused by the vaccine, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation deliberately chose to delay alerting the public. Instead of condemning this suppression of vital safety information, the Inquiry concludes that “the UK’s regulatory and advisory systems responded appropriately.”

Additionally, the report discusses the care home mandate, which forced care workers to be vaccinated or risk losing their jobs. There is no mention of the evidence that the mandate did not result in any observable reduction in care-home mortality. Nor does the report address the fact that thousands of care workers left the sector at a time when care homes were facing a staffing crisis. There is also no mention of the vaccine certification scheme, which mandated vaccination for all those attending large-scale events and nightclubs.

The Government’s obsession with increasing uptake rates, irrespective of the ethics or public-health benefits, had consequences which are still being felt today. There is a lower uptake rate of common childhood vaccines and a more general loss of trust in vaccination safety. Notably, the pressure used to increase uptake rates was focused largely on young people, for whom the risks of vaccination almost certainly outweighed any potential benefit.

Blame should also be apportioned to the press. Not only did media outlets largely fail to challenge the Government’s approach, but they often colluded with it directly. In March 2021, the Times dutifully told us that “we needn’t worry about the AstraZeneca vaccine, blood clots are a fact of life.” Just a few months later, when official data was starting to show the limited effectiveness of vaccination in preventing infection, the paper led a campaign for the Government simply to stop publishing that data out of fear that it could encourage conspiracy theorists.

The Covid Inquiry has had the opportunity to call for a return to long-held public health principles based on informed consent and transparency. It has not. Realistic change requires accountability, and it is disappointing that those who are responsible for the failures of the vaccine rollout are not being held to account. It is not just those physically injured or killed following vaccination who have been let down. There are also those who were pressured into getting jabbed, those who lost their jobs rather than follow mandates, and the many who have lost trust in all vaccinations. They deserve better.

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David Paton is a Professor of Industrial Economics at Nottingham University Business School.

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