After three years, HLAS-SD Vice-chair Richard Raši entered the same river for the second time. Specifically, the position of minister of investments, regional development, and informatization. Throughout our conversation, he repeatedly mentioned how much he values the excellent Czecho-Slovak relations.
HLAS-SD achieved great success by having your now former chairman Peter Pellegrini elected as president. You have known him personally for a long time and have co-founded the HLAS party. What are his greatest strengths that make him fit for the presidential role?
Peter Pellegrini is the first president in the history of the Slovak Republic to have held all the most important constitutional positions. He has the best overview out of all contemporary politicians. We have never had a president who has gone through such an array of not only constitutional but also executive roles, which is why I think he has the best professional qualifications. He knows the whole of Slovakia, whether as prime minister, deputy prime minister, minister, or opposition leader. He brings a vast knowledge of Slovakia, common people‘s problems, regions, and the state to the presidential office. Plus, he has personal qualities such as calmness, erudition, dignity, and the ambition to bring calm to society and represent Slovakia abroad at the highest level, with Slovakia always coming first.
Do you think that the emotions of support for the recovering Prime Minister Fico were the main reason that SMER-SD achieved such major results in the European Parliament election, possibly at HLAS‘s expense? Or was your campaign missing Peter Pellegrini, who was preparing to take office?
We in the HLAS party are pleased to have our first-ever MEP, Branislav Ondruš. He has been the state secretary at the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, and Family for many years and is a true social democrat. It is symbolic that HLAS, as a social democratic party, has a strong person with a strong social conscience. Of course, the campaign was affected by the act, and the results may have been influenced by that, but we don‘t want to blame the change in mood after the assassination attempt. We believe that we will have more MEPs in the future.
Richard Raši with Slovak President Peter Pellegrini.
International pundits put HLAS on the European side when drawing the line between pro-European and anti-EU forces. Are you the most pro-European force in the government coalition? Did the favorable election results of the non-parliamentary party Republika, which maintained its foothold in high politics thanks to the European election, cause you any concerns?
Yes, I am convinced that HLAS is the most pro-European party in the coalition because we have never questioned our membership in the EU and NATO. As for Republika, they took advantage of the overall mood in society, perhaps even a certain level of Euroscepticism. We do not focus on other parties but on our policy and taking care of the citizens of the Slovak Republic as part of the greater family of EU states.
The Slovak economy is not doing well, but the EU recovery plan could help. Will it be possible to invest the funding meaningfully and help reduce the significant regional disparities in Slovakia?
The recovery plan and EU funding are tools to reduce regional disparities so that no one is punished for being born in the remote areas of Slovakia instead of in Bratislava. European funding is extremely important because it covers three- quarters of our regional investments. The recovery plan is overseen by Deputy Prime Minister Peter Kmec, and our ministry is responsible for managing EU funding. I am convinced that we will do everything to ensure that the European funds available to us go to the regions and that we invest them meaningfully.
At the beginning of this year, there was a crisis in Czecho-Slovak relations, but a plan to restore them to their previous excellent level was already on the table just before the assassination attempt on the prime minister. Will this improvement be held off for Prime Minister Fico's recovery?
I am convinced that Czecho-Slovak relations will be, are, and must be excellent because no two nations are as close as the Czechs and Slovaks, and no politician can divide our two nations. What happened on the part of the Czech government was just a temporary misunderstanding. As ministers, we have excellent bilateral relations because we have the same goals. At our ministry, it's informatization, reducing regional disparities, and improving the quality of life for people, and my Czech colleague has the same goals, regardless of our political opinions. There is no political force that can weaken our relations. I believe that in the foreseeable future, there will also be a joint Czecho-Slovak government.
You are from Košice. Can you explain to us Czechs why we are more liked in Košice than in Bratislava? Or is that no longer the case? And is it true that the average person from Košice has been to Prague more often than to Bratislava? Does that adage still hold?
I am not only from Košice but also a former mayor of Košice, having led the city for almost eight years. Indeed, the relationship with the people of the Czech Republic is exceptional in Košice. I would say it exceeds the nationwide average. Košice has always been a cosmopolitan city, home to many nationalities, but the relationship with Czech people is special because when the then Eastern Slovak Ironworks, now US Steel Košice, was launched more than 50 years ago, many experts moved to the city. That has formed the foundations of many relationships. Therefore, the people of Košice feel at home in Czechia
The author is a European editor of Deník
CV BOX
Richard Raši (born April 2, 1971, in Košice) is the Slovak minister of investments, regional development, and informatization and vice-chair of the HLAS-SD party.
In 1995, he finished his studies in general medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Pavel Jozef Šafárik University in Košice and later also completed a first-degree surgery certification and a special exam in trauma surgery. He earned a Master of Public Health degree from the Slovak Medical University in Bratislava in 2004. In 2010, he finished his PhD studies at the Technical University of Košice.
Since 1995, he has worked at the Trauma Surgery Clinic at the L. Pasteur University Hospital in Košice, where he served as deputy director of preventive and therapeutic care from 2004. In March 2007, he was appointed director of the University Hospital Bratislava.
From 2007 to 2020, he was a member of the SMER-SD party but then moved to HLAS-SD. From 2010, he was the mayor of Košice for eight years and served as minister of health for two years. Between 2018 and 2020, he was the deputy prime minister for investments and informatization, a position he returned to after the 2023 elections.
Raši is married and has three daughters.
