On Friday Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico spoke again in favor of lifting sanctions against Russia, which, according to his opinion, “are useless and hurtful for both the EU and Russia”. He wrote about this on his official Facebook page.

“I personally think that it’s time to look at sanctions from a rational point of view and say that they cause harm both to the EU and Russia,” Robert Fico said. “They never helped to solve the problems they were supposed to affect.”

On Thursday Slovak Prime Minister visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On August 26, Robert Fico takes part in the meeting of leaders of the Visegrád Group (which includes Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Czech Republic) with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“Yesterday we reached common ground with Vladimir Putin that our goal is to increase mutual trade,” Fico wrote on his page in Facebook.

In the current half of the year Slovakia takes chair in the EU. The Prime Minister of this country has repeatedly spoken out in favor of lifting anti-Russian sanctions.

The leaders of Hungary and the president of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman are also against anti-Russian sanctions. At the same time, on Thursday Angela Merkel and Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Bohuslav Sobotka called the possibility of lifting anti-Russian sanctions by the European Union premature.