A pro-Western protest movement in Slovakia that has been galvanized by the pro-Moscow trajectory of Prime Minister Robert Fico widened on Friday, with an estimated 110,000 people attending evening demonstrations in 41 towns in the country and another 13 cities across Europe. Crowds were estimated at 42,000-45,000 in the capital of Bratislava, and at more than 20,000 in the eastern Slovak city of Košice, according to SafetyCrew, an event safety consultancy. Unlike previous demonstrations, this week’s unrest also rocked smaller rural towns that until now have been bastions of support for the ruling leftist-populist Smer party. Milo Janáč, 49, told POLITICO that he had been returning to his home town of Gelnica (pop. 6,202) by train two weeks ago from a protest in Bratislava when a newspaper interview caught his eye. In it, teacher Eva Wolfová explained that “it’s no big thing to have 50,000 people demonstrating in Bratislava and 15,000 in Košice. But the moment they get 300 people protesting in Gelnica, it’s all over [for the Fico government].” Gelnica, an impoverished mining town settled in the 13th century by ethnic Germans from Bavaria, lies in the Slovak Ore Mountains in the east of the country. The average gross monthly wage there in August 2024 was €1,241, the third-lowest among Slovakia’s 79 districts. Fico’s Smer won in Gelnica with 30 percent of the vote in the most recent parliamentary elections. “I took it as a challenge, and even on the train I started messaging people to ask if they could help,” said Janáč, who in addition to writing and bartending also serves as the spokesperson for the Gelnica mayor’s office. “Robert Fico has a lot of voter support where I live. I know he’s not going to resign, no matter how many people turn out in Gelnica, but if these protests start spreading further among these smaller towns, we’ll be in a new reality,” Janáč said. Fico, who before 1989 belonged to the Communist Party of then-Czechoslovakia, returned to power in October 2023 for his fourth term as prime minister. Along with Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, he has formed a pro-Russian salient within the European Union, and before Christmas last year paid court to Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, spurning an unofficial EU ban on meeting with top Russian officials. ‘LOSING OUR FUTURE’ More recently Fico has claimed, without providing evidence, that legionnaires from Georgia along with Ukrainian military counterintelligence were fomenting the protests in Slovakia to overthrow his government. Janáč said the protests were indeed aimed at preventing Fico from “pulling us back to the past into the embrace of the Kremlin,” but he said they had other goals as well. “Under Fico’s governments, we went from being the economic tiger of Europe to one of the poorest countries in the EU,” Janáč said. “Our school system is a disaster, and our health care is so bad that 10,000 people die here needlessly every year. Our young people see no prospects here and have left the country. We are losing our future,” he said. On Friday, Janáč did get his crowd, with some 400 people showing up to protest in Gelnica. Actor Milan Kňažko, one of the central figures in the 1989 Velvet Revolution that ended Communism in the former Czechoslovakia, urged the protesters “not to let men from the past steal our futures and those of our children.” Lucia Štasselová from the Bratislava-based NGO Mier Ukrajine (Peace to Ukraine), which has been organizing the protests, on Friday accused Fico of being “the main protagonist of Russia’s hybrid war in Slovakia.” In a social media post, however, the Slovak leader on Friday cited a statement from the office of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the EU executive “sees no indications that Slovakia is considering leaving the European Union” and that “cooperation between the Commission and the Slovak government is constructive and productive.” “I ask myself, really, why people are going to protest today,” Fico wrote.

Georgia has decided to pause its European Union accession efforts and reject EU grants in response to a European Parliament resolution that denounced the South Caucasus nation’s recent parliamentary election as being “neither free nor fair.” Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze announced that the opening of accession talks with the EU would be removed from Georgia’s agenda and that the country would refuse EU budgetary grants until the end of 2028, “when Georgia will be adequately prepared economically to open negotiations to become a member in 2030.” The EU last month said Georgia’s accession was halted as the country “has gone backwards,” according to a progress report. Kobakhidze said the Georgian government’s decision aims to show “European politicians and bureaucrats, completely devoid of European values, that blackmail is not the way to address Georgia, but respect is.” “We are a proud and self-respecting nation with a rich history; therefore, it’s categorically unacceptable to view EU integration as an act of mercy,” Kobakhidze said. Kobakhidze further remarked that Georgia will become an EU member “with dignity, rather than by begging.” To that end, the country will continue to fulfill its obligations under the Association Agreement with the bloc, albeit without EU funding, according to the prime minister. Georgia was granted EU candidate status last December on the condition of implementing reforms. However, the country’s leadership has since faced criticism from the bloc for an authoritarian pivot. In May, the ruling Georgian Dream party adopted a Russian-style law on “foreign agents,” widely regarded as a tool for silencing civil society. Moreover, the recent parliamentary election, in which Georgian Dream claimed victory, was marred by violence and irregularities. International observers did not declare them free and fair. Pro-Western opposition groups, as well as Georgia’s president, contested the results, sparking street protests. A resolution adopted by the European Parliament on Thursday called for the EU to impose sanctions on top Georgian Dream politicians.

It was a case of third time lucky for Jozef Síkela. First linked to the energy portfolio, then to the trade beat, the 57-year-old Czech finally landed at DG INTPA — the inelegantly named Directorate General for International Partnerships. Yet what might sound like a second-tier department is actually a key element of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s vision of an economic foreign policy guided by geopolitics. As steward of the €300 billion Global Gateway infrastructure initiative, Síkela will at least have money to play with as Brussels tries to compete with Beijing’s Belt and Road. The ex-banker and industry minister brings business and crisis-management skills to the table. He previously won respect for his coordination of Europe’s response to an energy crisis — sparked by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — during Prague’s presidency of the Council in late 2022. We’ll be bringing you all the live action from 2:30 p.m. CET on Nov. 6.  Watch live here. Background reading:  * How the hearings work  * Who’s most likely to get the chop  P.S.: If you want to follow more of the action from the hearings, our reporters will be bringing you blow-by-blow updates from all 26 commissioner interviews here.