Digest of news from Slovakia, Czechia, and Poland, June 14 - 21, 2026
Slovakia
1) PM Fico promises not to block EU summit conclusions on Ukraine
2) Fico after meeting Zelensky: we have "fundamentally different views," but I want dialogue to continue
Analysis:
Ahead of the European Council summit on 18-19 June, Slovak PM Robert Fico told parliament that he saw no reason to block the EU's conclusions on Ukraine this time. This marks a departure from his past pattern of withholding support for such conclusions alongside former Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán. Fico reiterated that Bratislava will not provide weapons or financial aid to Ukraine, but stressed he has never opposed Kyiv's EU membership ambition, while insisting that Ukraine must meet all conditions without shortcuts or exceptions in the accession process. He also confirmed plans to meet Zelensky on the sidelines of the summit and said the two would likely discuss the joint intergovernmental session both sides have been negotiating, with Zelensky proposing Kyiv as the venue and Fico favoring Bratislava.
That meeting took place on 18 June, and the following day Fico told reporters it left him with the impression that he and Zelensky hold fundamentally different views on many issues. He described it as their second one-on-one meeting and said he remains committed to dialogue even with those whose positions diverge sharply from his own. Fico noted he expects another brief exchange with Zelensky at the upcoming International Conference on Ukraine's Recovery in Gdańsk, and said his main interest now lies in pinning down a date for the next joint government session between Bratislava and Kyiv.
The contradictory texture of Fico's approach to Ukraine is still lasting. His refusal to block the summit conclusions and his stated openness to a full, condition-based accession process suggest Bratislava is not prepared to obstruct Kyiv's European path outright. At the same time, his blunt acknowledgment of fundamentally opposing views, paired with the now-familiar refusal of weapons or financial support, confirms that Slovak engagement with Ukraine continues to operate within narrow, carefully bounded limits. The persistent disagreement over whether the next intergovernmental session should be held in Kyiv or Bratislava is a small but telling detail: even on logistics, the two governments have yet to find common ground.
Czech Republic
1) Czech government approves participation in EU's SAFE rearmament loan program
2) Thousands protest in Prague against government's planned cuts to public broadcaster funding
Analysis:
On 15 June, the Czech government approved the country's participation in the EU's SAFE loan program, under which Prague will receive €2.06 billion to purchase Leopard 2A8 tanks and Tatra T-815 trucks, with some funds also earmarked for the D11 motorway, which has a military function. The European Commission approved the Czech loan plan in March, and the Council of the EU followed a month later; nineteen EU member states have now joined the SAFE mechanism. Poland was the first country to sign its SAFE agreement, securing access to nearly €44 billion in rearmament loans, though its participation was briefly jeopardized after President Karol Nawrocki vetoed the underlying law before the government found a way around the obstacle.
On 21 June, thousands of people marched through Prague to protest a government plan to overhaul the decades-old funding system for Czech public broadcasters. The protest, organized by the civic group Milion Chvilek, came a day before journalists at Czech Television and Czech Radio were set to begin a strike over the changes. The government, led by Andrej Babiš's ANO party in coalition with right-wing and far-right partners, voted last week to scrap the licensing fee that has been the main funding source for public broadcasting, proposing instead to fund the channels directly from the state budget, a move critics say opens the door to political interference. The reform would cut funding by roughly 15%, reverting to 2008-2024 levels, and Czech Television's director has warned it could force layoffs of up to 500 of the broadcaster's 2,900 employees.
Two episodes last week pointed to a government willing to commit substantial new resources to defense modernization while simultaneously cutting funding to a public institution it has repeatedly accused of bias. The SAFE participation reflects continuity with the EU's broader rearmament push and aligns Czech defense policy with peers such as Poland and France. The public broadcasting dispute, by contrast, reveals a domestic political project that critics see as eroding institutional independence, echoing a similar and still-unresolved controversy in Lithuania. Read together, they suggest a Babiš government willing to engage constructively with EU-level security initiatives even as it pursues a more combative, majoritarian approach to domestic media governance.
Poland
1) Poland says it will "fight for its interests" in EU accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova
2) Polish deputy defense minister: Ukraine "not interested" in receiving Polish MiG-29s
3) FM Sikorski: only Russia stands to gain from the "war over history and medals"
Analysis:
On 16 June, Polish State Secretary for European Affairs Ignacy Niemczycki said that the formal opening of EU accession clusters with Ukraine and Moldova, which took place the previous day in Luxembourg, marked only the beginning of negotiations in which Warsaw intends to defend its own interests. He described the cluster opening as the moment when formal conditions are presented to candidate states, adding that Poland will use the process to advocate for its priorities. The remarks came as member states reportedly agreed informally on 14 July as the date for opening five clusters in Ukraine's accession talks, and as Zelensky said after meeting G7 leaders that he saw no signs of deliberate delay in the process.
A more pointed signal of strain followed on 17 June, when Polish Deputy Defense Minister Paweł Zalewski said Ukraine currently shows no interest in receiving Polish MiG-29 fighter jets. He attributed the stalled transfer to two factors: Ukraine's preference for aircraft adapted to modern combat conditions, which Poland is not prepared to fund, and unfinished negotiations over reciprocal drone technology cooperation. Zalewski went further, linking Kyiv's cooling interest to the broader dispute over Ukraine's decision to name a special forces unit after the UPA, and directly criticized President Nawrocki for what he called exploiting anti-Ukrainian sentiment to win votes, calling it deeply damaging to Poland. He denied, however, that the delayed jet transfer was being used as leverage to pressure Ukraine into renaming the unit.
The dispute escalated sharply by the weekend. On the evening of 19 June, President Nawrocki stripped Zelensky of Poland's Order of the White Eagle over the UPA naming decision, declaring that Poland would not accept into the EU a country unwilling to renounce what he called a "cult of totalitarianism and violence." Ukraine's response was immediate: Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, Ambassador to Poland Vasyl Bodnar, and Presidential Office head Kyrylo Budanov all announced they would return Polish state honors they had previously received. On 20 June, Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski shared a column arguing that Nawrocki had pursued "anti-diplomacy" rather than diplomacy and may have won a moral victory while losing on substance, adding his own assessment that only Moscow stands to gain from a war fought over history and medals. PM Donald Tusk separately expressed regret that the dispute kept deepening, noting it served only to please Putin and alarm Poland's allies.
The accession talks reveal a Polish government engaging constructively, if assertively, with Ukraine's EU path, treating the process as a forum to secure national interests rather than to obstruct Kyiv's progress. The stalled MiG transfer and, far more dramatically, the withdrawal of Zelensky's state honor show how the UPA naming dispute has moved from rhetoric into concrete diplomatic and military consequences, with a Polish deputy minister explicitly naming domestic electoral politics as a driver of the president's approach. Sikorski's and Tusk's interventions suggest that the government and the presidency are now operating on visibly different tracks, with the cabinet trying to contain the damage even as the president escalates it. The recurring warning from Polish officials themselves, that this dispute primarily benefits Russia, underscores how costly the rift has become for a partnership both governments still describe as strategic.