Robert Fico

The social-democratic party of incumbent Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico won the general elections held in the country on Saturday, but lost its parliamentary majority.

According to preliminary results based on almost all of the votes counted, Fico's Smer-Social Democracy party won the elections with 28.3 % of the ballots, which translates to 49 seats in the 150-member parliament.

Slovakia's leftist Prime Minister Robert Fico said March 6 that he would begin difficult coalition talks after he won elections on an anti-refugee platform but lost his parliamentary majority as smaller parties, including the extreme right, scored first-time seats.

Slovaks are voting for a new Parliament on Saturday, with social-democrat Robert Fico widely expected to remain in office as Prime Minister.

Some 4.4 million people are eligible to cast a ballot.

Many opinion polls have suggested the incumbent's Smer SD party is tipped to win, possibly garnering up to 38.4 percent of the vote, but also losing its majority in Parliament.

The Visegrad group of central European countries will hold a summit on Feb. 15 to discuss the migration crisis, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka tweeted on Jan. 26, Reuters reported. 

The meeting of Czech, Polish, Hungarian and Slovak prime ministers will take place ahead of a Feb. 18-19 summit of European Union leaders at which the crisis will be assessed. 

The EU is committing "ritual suicide" with its migration policy, says Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico.

In an interview for Czech daily Pravo, quoted by French agency AFP, Fico urged EU's 28 member-states "to stop the influx of illegal immigrants."

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico stated that the best way to limit the refugee flow is to expulse Greece from the Schengen Area, according to Slovak media.

Mr. Fico claimed that Greece has no place in the Schengen Area and everyone is convinced about that. Asked, however, on whether this is discussed officially, he responded negatively.

Slovakia  will recourse to the European Court of Justice against the decision by the European Commission to enforce a mandatory refugee relocation scheme to other EU member-states of the 120,000 migrants currently in Greece and Italy. The government of Slovakia announced it would take the matter to the European Court, Tuesday.

EU Minister of Justice and Interior approved a plan on the relocation of 120,000 refugees and immigrants from Greece, Italy and Hungary to other EU member-states during their extra ordinary session in Brussels, Tuesday. The EU countries reached a majority agreement as Ministers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary voted against the proposed redistribution plan.

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Monday he believed it was better to keep Greece in the euro zone than it was to let it fall out.

"I believe that, at the end of the day, at least politically we will come to a conclusion that Greece remaining in the euro zone has more advantages at this moment than disadvantages," Fico said.

Energy Minister Panayiotis Lafazanis on Friday hit back angrily at comments by US energy official Amos Hochstein maintaining that the potential extension of Russia?s as yet unbuilt TurkStream gas pipeline through Greece could create a ?problem area.?