Welcome to the Euro Intelligence Podcast.

I'm Wolfgang Munchau and with me, I'm Zerzanne Munchank and Jack Smith.

Today, we would like to talk about the impact of the Ukraine war on the domestic politics in various European countries

and the division of political opinion no longer into the extreme ends of pro-Russia and pro-Ukraine,

but into various shades of gray positions that emerged in Germany, for example,

where the SPD is now taking a view what they call to freeze the conflict,

which, whether realistic or not,

is certainly a departure from the position that Ola Schultz had taken earlier on. And we see different

strands of opinion emerging away from the sort of binary kind of outcomes that the debate was

characterized before. Susanna, you wrote about the Slovakian presidential elections,

the first round of these elections that took place on the weekend.

Ukraine is a factor in those elections, aren't they not?

Yes, we had two candidates that actually came out in this first round of presidential elections,

and they were going to face each other in the April runoff.

These two candidates, the independent career diplomat, Coachok, who actually came out first with

42% in the polls ahead of the one Pellegrini, the parliamentary speaker on whose party is part of Robert Fico's government,

who was actually predicted by the polls to win.

Now, these two candidates are at the very opposite end of the, on the Ukraine.

Pellegrini is Vefiko on board for freezing the conflict with the arguments that you cannot win

militarily this war and you have to talk peace now.

Fico, after being elected last September, he was one of the first who cut immediately

the state-funded weapons delivery to Ukraine, even though commercial ones are still allowed.

...