Listen to the recording of the discussion hosted by the civic association EuroPolicy in collaboration with the EURACTIV Slovakia portal and the Prague office of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung. The event was held on October 8, 2025, at the European Information Centre.

Former Vice-President of the European Commission Věra Jourová says in the podcast that she considers it a failure that she did not convince President Ursula von der Leyen of the need to retain text messages.

Robert Fico was not the one who came up with the fight against the ban on combustion engines. It was more about looking for a pretext so he could claim he had achieved some kind of success, says MEP Veronika Cifrová Ostrihoňová (PS, Renew Europe) in the podcast.

The current security environment forces countries to reconsider their neutral policies. Sweden and Finland abandoned theirs just a few weeks after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, realizing that it could no longer sufficiently guarantee their national security. Even Switzerland, which is a member of neither the EU nor NATO, is now strengthening its partnership with both blocs, says the highest-ranking Slovak in NATO, Barbora Marônková.