What Slovakia is writing about: Pellegrini floated a Smer-PS government. Šimečka called it absurd

President Peter Pellegrini said on Saturday that Slovakia would benefit from a grand coalition of Smer and Progressive Slovakia, two parties that have long stood on opposite sides of the political divide. PS leader Michal Šimečka rejected the idea as absurd that same afternoon, and Prime Minister Robert Fico remarked in the evening that the president was assembling a government before the elections. Slovak newsrooms each pulled a different sentence from the same interview, and that choice shows just how differently they read the same political season.

The idea PS rejected and Smer sidestepped

Pellegrini said it on Sobotné dialógy, a talk show on public broadcaster STVR. In his view it would be better to build one broad coalition out of two large parties than to patch together multi-party groupings that fall apart within a year. He added that this would require a mature leader on both sides, someone able to set his ego aside, and that the election could well end in deadlock. Hospodárske noviny ↗

The daily Postoj was the only outlet to seize on what the president did not say. Asked whether he would appoint a government that included Republika, he gave no direct answer and called the question premature. Of Republika itself he said it is collecting the votes of frustrated people who are losing faith in both the coalition and the opposition, and called that an exclamation mark for both camps. Postoj ↗

Šimečka replied that Smer is the biggest brake on a better life in Slovakia and ruled out any cooperation with Fico. "President Pellegrini seems to have forgotten that it was he, not us, who governed with Fico for years," he wrote, adding that he rejects the absurdity out of hand. Pravda ↗ Aktuality added the president's argument that pairing PS with Smer would deliver more stability than a government with Igor Matovič. Aktuality.sk ↗ A political scientist interviewed by ta3 television put it bluntly: both parties would be denying their own reason to exist. ta3 ↗

The sharpest framing came from a commentary in SME, which called the president's move a grand reconciliation and noted that it would seat Fico, PS and Vladimír Mečiar at the same table. The author objects that Pellegrini is calling for an end to political warfare as though he did not know the members of his own political family. SME ↗ Fico answered that evening with a video in which he questioned why the president is putting together a government before the vote. Hospodárske noviny ↗

The budget, the transaction tax and giveaways from both sides of the chamber

The same video had a second half. Fico said that passing the state budget is the responsibility of the whole coalition, not only of Smer, which nominated the finance minister, and that a balanced budget is out of the question. He also told his coalition partners to stop outbidding one another with new spending and tax cuts. Pravda ↗

A few hours later he signalled a reversal on something he himself had announced in late August. Scrapping the transaction tax from January 2027 may not be final after all, he said, and he wants to ask the coalition council whether the government should reconsider. ta3 ↗ Postoj built its headline directly on the prime minister's own wording about asking the coalition council whether they will think again. Postoj ↗

The call for restraint came on a day when proposals were piling up from both sides of the chamber. Hlas proposed a permanent income-tax exemption for one parent who has raised four or more children, primarily the mother. Hospodárske noviny ↗ SNS asked to raise the one-off school-entry allowance from 110 to 200 euros and to add 30 euros before every subsequent school year. Hospodárske noviny ↗ The opposition SaS tabled the abolition of the dividend tax Hospodárske noviny ↗ and the deregulation of several licensed trades. Hospodárske noviny ↗ Opposition MP Gábor Grendel summed it up by saying this government's last budget will not be about saving but about handing money out. SITA ↗

The Russian ambassador summoned, and a call for dialogue with Moscow on the same day

On Friday a Russian jet-powered drone hit the headquarters of Ukraine's Security Service on Volodymyrska Street in Kyiv, a building close to the consular section of the Slovak embassy. Foreign Minister Juraj Blanár ordered the Russian ambassador summoned the same day. SITA ↗ The foreign ministry announced on Saturday that it had summoned the ambassador and protested against strikes aimed near diplomatic premises and civilian infrastructure. According to the ministry, Slovak diplomats use those premises only sparingly for security reasons and nobody was inside at the time. Hospodárske noviny ↗ Broadcaster ta3 added that Blanár also sent a message to the Ukrainian side. ta3 ↗

That same day, in the same broadcast, the president said the West should step up efforts to talk to Russia directly. SITA ↗ The two statements do not contradict each other, but they show the two registers Slovakia uses towards Moscow within a single day.

Read also: What Slovakia is writing about: Šimkovičová removed fund board members five days before the vote on its head

One name in two unrelated cases

Denník N published a recording on which, according to the paper, Bratislava mayoral candidate Martin Winkler of the Dunaj party admits taking campaign money from the businessman and lawyer Zoroslav Kollár, who has a final conviction for bribing the leadership of the Slovak Information Service. The paper says the recording was made on 11 July 2026 by his rival candidate Zuzana Šubová, no figure is named on it, and Šubová puts the sum at 40,000 euros. Denník N ↗ Winkler himself says he never took a single euro from Kollár and questioned whether the recording can be authenticated at all, pointing to what artificial intelligence can do today. Hospodárske noviny ↗

The same day the same paper reported that Matúš Šutaj Eštok's interior ministry wants to buy the Business Garden office building on Štefánikova Street, which it currently rents. It signed the lease in 2024 with a company called Kartezis, in which Kollár was listed until the autumn of 2020, shortly before police detained him. The ministry does not examine ownership structures, according to the paper. Denník N ↗ These are two separate cases linked by a single name. Kollár faces no new charge in either of them, and both so far rest on the reporting of one newsroom.

Under the radar

According to Denník N, the environment ministry paid more than 1.8 million euros for airtime on STVR for a magazine programme called Teraz o prírode. Its guests are said to be Minister Tomáš Taraba's appointees in bodies under the ministry, along with ministry staff. Denník N ↗

In the fight over the environment ministry, two readings of the same day sit side by side. The daily Štandard, citing SNS parliamentary group leader Roman Michelko, writes that the president has softened his stance on the candidacy of state secretary Filip Kuffa. Štandard ↗ Yet in that same Saturday broadcast Pellegrini said he could imagine candidates who would do more to calm the ministry down, and that Kuffa should not be the only name on the table. Postoj ↗

Košice regional governor Rastislav Trnka ended up in a situation where a court issued an arrest warrant for him in late August because it could not deliver the indictment in the gritter-purchase case. Trnka came to the district court in Námestovo voluntarily on 3 September, accepted the indictment, and the court cancelled the warrant the same day. The prosecutor had filed it back in July 2025. kosicak.sk ↗

Defence Minister Robert Kaliňák suggested that military police could guard hard-to-reach facilities, and said such a deployment is under consideration. Hospodárske noviny ↗

The Sunday talk shows open the political season, and the line-up shows where this week's themes will meet. Blanár appears with SaS MP Mária Kolíková on Na telo, SNS leader Andrej Danko and Šimečka on V politike, and Šutaj Eštok with KDH leader Milan Majerský on O 5 minút 12. Aktuality.sk ↗

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