Troubled water between Budapest and Bratislava

Relations between Bratislava and Budapest are at their worst since the partition of Czechoslovakia in 1993. Following Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico's refusal to allow Hungarian President Laszlo Solyom access to Slovakian territory, Hospodárske Noviny reports that "the Slovaks will have some explaining to do in Brussels." Solyom was on his way to Komárno, a Slovak town which is just across the Danube from Hungary's Komárom. The President had been invited by the town's Hungarian minority, to inaugurate a statue of Saint Stephen I, the patron saint of Hungary, on 21 August — but his trip came to a halt on the bridge across the river. Solyom is now planning to file an official complaint with the European Union, of which both countries have been members since 2004. Hannes Swoboda, the Vice-Chairman of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (PASD) which is currently discussing the possibility of integrating Fico's social-democrat party, described the incident as "unacceptable, anti-European, and infuriating."