EVROPA Politics Digest (Summer)

During this hot and heavy season, Europe turned left, politically speaking

Three hateful shootings

The end of European spring gave a worrying start to the European summer. On the 15th of May, in the small Slovak town of Handlová, a 71-year-old poet and writer Juraj Cintula raised his gun at Robert Fico and shot five angry bullets at him. As Cintula said later, he just wanted to “damage Fico’s health” but not kill him. The bullets pierced Fico’s abdomen, leaving him critically injured. The Prime Minister of Slovakia was then hospitalized and his condition stabilized after emergency surgery. He has since recovered and continues to lead his country.

Fico is a loud populist voice in European politics. After winning the 2023 parliamentary elections in Slovakia, his party quickly shut down military aid to Ukraine. It enforced several repressive regulations, causing mass protests in this Central European country.

Fico’s assassination attempt isn’t a singular such event to happen in the Western hemisphere this summer. Two more politically-motivated shootings took place in the last couple of months. All three of them targeted conservative, populist or right-wing politicians.