Whether Robert Fico survives and resumes office or not, Slovakia stands on the brink | John Kampfner

The shock of an assassination attempt could heal the deep divisions that Fico exploited, but the omens are not promising

A few years after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, known as the velvet divorce", the newly independent Slovakian state to the south was already a cause of concern. The US secretary of state at the time, Madeleine Albright, called it the black hole" of Europe.

Eventually, in 2004 Slovakia joined the EU and Nato. The assumption then in the west was that the country, finally, had a settled identity and a settled set of alliances.

John Kampfner is an author and broadcaster, and made the BBC World Service documentary Slovakia Divided

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