President: All Political Parties Reject Sending Slovak Troops to Ukraine

        Bratislava, March 26 (TASR) - Both coalition and opposition representatives have concurred that they reject the deployment of Slovak soldiers to a possible peacekeeping mission in Ukraine, President Peter Pellegrini stated on Wednesday following a roundtable meeting that he convened on the issue of defence and security.
        The head of state wants to discuss further an increase in defence spending with representatives of the parliamentary parties. A meeting in the same format should be held before the NATO summit in The Hague in June.
        "I'm pleased that we all agreed that Slovakia won't send any troops to Ukraine, whether for peacekeeping or any other mission, and that increasing spending is on the table, it will be a big topic that we'll deal with," said the president, adding that in the case of defence spending, the next discussion will be not only about the level of funds, but also about the pace at which they could grow and what they should include. The head of state said that Slovakia's negative attitude towards sending troops to Ukraine is the reason why Slovakia isn't being invited by other countries to summits of the so-called coalition of the willing.
        The roundtable participants also agreed on the need to strengthen the European pillar of the Alliance. They agree that if the United States no longer wants to participate in NATO or wants to limit its role, Slovakia must form part of a possible new independent European security model.
        The coalition and the opposition have diverging views on the issue of EU contributions to aiding Ukraine, however. "While the coalition makes it clear that Slovakia shouldn't voluntarily contribute additional financial resources to this package, some opposition political parties have the attitude that Slovakia could do more in relation to Ukraine and help it more significantly," noted Pellegrini.
        The president praised the constructive course of the meeting. He considers defence and security to be strategic topics that should be discussed across the political spectrum. He also defended the need for the meeting by pointing to the desire to present a broader stance at NATO meetings, as some decisions will have an impact on more than one electoral term.
        The meeting was attended by Smer-SD, Voice-SD, the Slovak National Party (SNS), Progressive Slovakia (PS), the Christian Democrats (KDH) and Freedom and Solidarity (SaS). Pellegrini pointed out that, in addition to the leaders of the political parties, he also invited Defence Minister Robert Kalinak (Smer-SD) and Chief-of-General-Staff of the Slovak Armed Forces Daniel Zmeko.