Thousands of people took to the streets in ten Slovak cities to protest Prime Minister Robert Fico’s push to dismantle the country’s independent Whistleblower Protection Office and replace it with a new body that critics say would be more directly dependent on the government. Demonstrators framed the move as part of a broader struggle over state capture, accountability, and the rule of law, arguing that weakening independent safeguards would make it harder to expose corruption and wrongdoing inside public institutions.
The protests also targeted criminal-law changes that would significantly narrow the benefits for suspects who cooperate with prosecutors, a mechanism often used to build complex cases involving organised crime and high-level corruption. Opponents say reducing incentives for cooperation, and tightening rules around cooperating witnesses more broadly, could undermine investigations and shield politically connected figures. Government supporters argue the reforms are necessary to correct past abuses and politicisation of the justice system, but the opposition has presented them as a rollback of hard-won anti-corruption tools.
The dispute has spilled into Slovakia’s top institutions and has become an open political confrontation. President Peter Pellegrini vetoed legislation related to weakening whistleblower protections, warning about rushed procedures and potential consequences for Slovakia’s standing and access to EU funds, even as the governing coalition signaled it could try to override resistance through parliament. The European Commission has also voiced concern about the direction and the pace of the changes, adding an EU dimension to what is already a heated domestic standoff.
As tensions escalated, the conflict turned visibly chaotic inside parliament as lawmakers argued over the reforms, underscoring how polarised the issue has become. The demonstrations, meanwhile, show that the whistleblower office and prosecutorial cooperation rules—normally technical topics—have become symbols in a much larger argument about whether Slovakia is strengthening democratic checks and balances or dismantling them under political pressure.
