EU leaders condemn ‘cowardly’ shooting of
Slovakian PM amid rise in attacks
Growing alarm over escalating violence on campaign
trails in weeks leading to European parliament elections
Lisa
O'Carroll in Brussels
Wed 15 May
2024 18.47 CEST
EU leaders
have condemned the “cowardly” assassination attempt on the Slovakian prime
minister, Robert Fico, warning that violence has “no place” in European
politics.
Olaf
Scholz, the chancellor of Germany, a country which has itself experienced a
wave of violent attacks on politicians in the past month, said: “I am deeply
shocked by the news of the cowardly attack on Slovakian Prime Minister Fico.
Violence must not exist in European politics.”
Speaking
just three weeks before elections to the European parliament, Ursula von der
Leyen, president of the European Commission, echoed his message, condemning
what she said was a “vile attack” on “both the prime minister and democracy”.
“Such acts
of violence have no place in our society and undermine democracy, our most
precious common good. My thoughts are with PM Fico and his family,” she said.
The
populist leader, 59, was taken to hospital for emergency surgery after being
shot outside the House of Culture in the town of Handlová, about 100 miles
north-east of the capital, Bratislava, where the leader was meeting with
supporters, according to reports on TA3, a Slovakian TV station.
The
shooting will heighten tensions going into the elections in June, with attacks
on German, Spanish and Irish politicians already casting a shadow over public
life. European Commission sources said the attack risked fuelling further
violence across the political landscape.
In a
statement, the liberal political group Renew said it was “increasingly alarmed
by the rising polarisation within our political sphere fuelled by extremist
ideologies, both left- and right-wing.”
This
“climate of heightened division is laying the groundwork for an environment
where acts of violence are more likely to occur, and also wrongly justified by
those who seek to disrupt and dominate rather than engage and debate”, it
added.
Josep
Borrell, Europe’s chief diplomat, said that Europe was “once again witnessing
unacceptable attacks against political representatives”.
In Germany,
where assaults on politicians causing physical injury have increased steeply
this year, with 22 such incidents recorded so far compared with 27 for all of
2023, Matthias Ecke, a Social Democratic MEP and candidate in Saxony, recently
suffered a broken cheekbone and eye socket after being attacked while putting
up campaign posters.
A Green
party politician was harassed and spat at while putting up posters in Dresden,
while a week ago Franziska Giffey, a Berlin state senator and former mayor of
the capital, was briefly treated in hospital after being attacked with a bag
“filled with hard contents”.
Violence
has also marred Spanish politics. Last November, Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a
co-founder of Spain’s far-right Vox party, was shot in the face in Madrid,
leading to the arrests of five people in connection with the case.
In Ireland,
the husband and young children of the justice minister, Helen McEntee, were
forced to evacuate their home after a bomb scare, while masked people gathered
last month outside the home of the integration minister, Roderic O’Gorman, in
unprecedented scenes of aggression at the homes of politicians.
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