Foreign Affairs Minister Ivan Korčok (an SaS nominee) called on Slovak MPs to be aware of their responsibility when representing Slovakia abroad, noting that he wants Government representatives to trust Slovak diplomacy. His comment came in reaction to the business trip of Finance Minister Igor Matovič (OLaNO) to Budapest last Friday in order to hold talks on the Russian made Sputnik V vaccine, while bypassing the Slovak embassy in the country. He obtained the promise of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban that Hungary's drug regulator will help Slovakia examine batches of Russian Sputnik V vaccines that Slovakia had bought in March. No details on what exactly this help will consist of have been made public though.
Matovič was accompanied at the talks only by OLaNO MP Gyorgy Gyimesi, an ethnic-Hungarian, who stated that the talks were successful thanks to the absence of Slovak diplomats. The Foreign Affairs Minister remarked that Slovak diplomats in Hungary have been confronted with a difficult situation, adding that role of Slovak diplomacy must not be questioned, either in Slovakia or abroad. Korčok at the same time objected to statements made by Gyimesi, who said that both the minister and Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Martin Klus (SaS) suffer from Hungarophobia.
In reaction to Matovič's trip, several Slovak diplomats issued a joint statement on Monday to denounce attacks against the country's foreign service, calling on politicians to act in a way that won't weaken Slovakia's standing abroad or denigrate its maturity and institutions.
