Slovakia: Political developments and data in 2025: Fico’s coalition survives but polarisation deepens

Abstract In 2025, Robert Fico’s coalition government survived its most serious internal crisis since taking office, as defections within the junior coalition parties temporarily stripped it of its parliamentary majority. Mass protests erupted in response to Fico’s late December 2024 visit to Vladimir Putin in Moscow and continued in waves throughout the year. The coalition stabilised through a March cabinet reshuffle that further consolidated SMER-Social Democracy’s dominance. By autumn, a sweeping constitutional amendment – embedding conservative social values and asserting national sovereignty over EU law, narrowly passed with support of some opposition deputies – marked both a political triumph for Fico and a deepening rupture with EU norms. The year ended with SMER-SD formally expelled from the Party of European Socialists, the European Commission launching infringement proceedings over the constitutional changes, and the abolition of the independent Whistleblower Protection Office completing the hollowing out of Slovakia’s anti-corruption architecture.