The populist swagger; the anti‑Brussels rhetoric; the sudden rediscovery of “national sovereignty” whenever EU consensus becomes inconvenient: Calling Robert Fico “the new Orbán” is tempting, and with it come fears that with Victor Orbán gone, the Slovak Prime Minister will become the next huge thorn in the European Union’s side. But here’s the difference. The ousted Hungarian Prime Minister had 16 uninterrupted years to build his power base, entrenching his model of “illiberal democracy.” Fico’s authority rests on far more fragile foundations.
Like Orbán, Fico casts the EU as a meddling technocracy, out of touch with “ordinary people.” He calls out imagined elites. And he, too, drifts toward the Kremlin’s gravitational pull — he’s the only EU leader planning to attend World War II victory celebrations in Moscow next month. His insistence that Ukraine will not join NATO on his watch is straight out of Orbán’s playbook. There’s also the shared habit of weaponizing history. Orbán has long used Hungarian historical trauma as a political instrument. Fico’s move to criminalize criticism of a post-World War II law assigning collective guilt to Hungarians for their nation’s alliance with Nazi Germany also attempts to turn historical sensitivity into political capital.
But here’s where the comparison ends. Orbán’s unbroken four-term tenure and a succession of supermajorities allowed his government to rewrite Hungary’s constitution, reshape the judiciary, consolidate the media, and create a patronage network that kept him in power — until it suddenly didn’t on April 12. All empires crumble at some point. But for 16 years, his power base at home allowed him to act as a spoiler on the EU stage. Fico is more vulnerable. He depends on a coalition partner to stay in power, and he doesn’t have the institutional depth that gave Orbán’s FIDESZ its broad power base. And Slovakia is more dependent on EU funds than Hungary is. So he can talk the talk in Brussels. But he cannot walk Orbán’s walk. He is a Slovak political perennial, at least for now. But unlike Orbán, one who comes and goes.
Until he’s gone forever?
It might be worth remembering a Slovak leader whose grip in the early days of post-communism was stronger than Fico’s. Yet even his attempts to keep Slovakia from aligning with the West failed.
If Vladimir Meciar, why not Robert Fico?
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