A climate change denier will not be Slovakia’s next environment minister, the country’s president, Zuzana Čaputová, said Thursday.
Rudolf Huliak — who was elected on the ballot of the populist Slovenská národná strana (Slovak National Party) but is not a member of the party — had been put forward for the environment job in Robert Fico’s government. Huliak has long been a climate change denier and has shared inflammatory messages about climate activists, NGOs, and the LGBTQ+ community on social media.
“A candidate who for a long time does not recognize the scientific consensus on climate change and, according to him, [believes] no real climate crisis exists, cannot lead and represent a department whose main task, according to the law, is the protection of nature and the Earth’s climate system,” Čaputová wrote in a statement, shared with POLITICO. She asked Fico to nominate a new candidate.
The SNS party, however, said it will not change the nomination and warned the president not to exceed her powers, a party spokesperson told Slovakia’s TASR news agency.
Čaputová’s refusal to approve Huliak could have consequences for Fico, who wants to get his government approved and represent Slovakia at a European summit next week in Brussels.
Fico, who handed in a list of names of ministers on Tuesday, has previously accused the president of “delaying the appointment of the new government.”
Fico’s leftist-populist and pro-Russia Smer (Direction) party won the recent Slovak election, announcing that it would form a coalition with the Hlas (Voice) party and SNS. Following that announcement, the Party of European Socialists suspended Smer and Hlas.
