Czech Republic and Slovakia continue further defence cooperation

The Slovak and Czech governments will continue and bolster defence cooperation, Slovak interim Premier Eduard Heger and his Czech counterpart Petr Fiala concurred at a joint session of the two cabinets in Trencin on Monday. The two governments also agreed on the need to continue humanitarian, economic, political and, last but not least, military assistance to Ukraine. An important factor, according to them, is the continuation of targeted pressure on Russia in the form of thorough compliance with sanctions by the EU and its partners, preventing their circumvention and creating mechanisms for holding people accountable for crimes related to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Strengthening energy security and eliminating dependence on Russian raw materials is one of the most important common topics. Czech Prime Minister Fiala stressed this after the meeting. He pointed out that both countries managed the now ending winter. To ensure the energy security of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, both countries must act together, Slovak interim Prime Minister Eduard Heger said. "The most important thing is nuclear fuel. Slovakia and the Czech Republic have strongly developed energy resources based on nuclear power. And it is important that together with the Czech Republic we can switch from Russian fuel to nuclear fuel from elsewhere as quickly as possible," stressed Heger.