The Two Faces of Slovakia’s Prime Minister: One For Home, One For the World

Since then, he has strived to make amends. In early April, he joined the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on her trip to Ukraine's capital and announced that Slovakia would hand over its Soviet-era air defence system to the country.

Heger, who described Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion against Ukraine as "a barbaric act" soon after it began, also pledged that his government would, in cooperation with the EU and NATO, throw its full support behind Ukraine. Slovakia, which has become temporary home to more than 77,000 refugees, has since provided Ukraine with military and humanitarian aid worth €130 million, agreed to NATO's forward presence on its territory, and ordered its state firm Konštrukta-Defence to repair Ukrainian military vehicles.

"Heger has proven to be a reliable ally," says Matej Navrátil, a foreign and security policy expert at the Slovak Academy of Sciences.

In addition to his clear foreign policy stance, observers have praised him for his willingness to step into the international arena, with his fluent English earning him high-profile invitations to appear on CNN and the BBC, during which he was grilled about Slovakia's decades-long high dependence on Russian energy, as well as his attempts to restore trust in the prime minister's office after years of misrule and scandal.

Yet his hold on the prime minister's chair has never been weaker since he took office in April 2021.

Deputy PM and Minister of Finance Igor Matovič (OĽaNO) before the 80th meeting of the Government of the Slovak Republic on 18 May 2022 in Bratislava. PHOTO TASR - Pavel Neubauer Backseat driver

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