BRATISLAVA, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The danger of unscrupulous domestic politics is dragging the whole Central European region backwards in the time when Europe needs strength and unity to address the challenges it faces, Slovak President Andrej Kiska said Thursday.
In his opening speech in GLOBSEC 2018 Bratislava Forum, Kiska said, "the unscrupulous politics pushes us out of our traditional space, where values of freedom, democracy and dialogue rule over autocracy, aggressive enforcement of purely selfish interests, and breaches of international norms."
"Journalist are true guardians of democracy, often the first to spot where politicians prefer their interest rather than public ones. Sadly, for the same reason, journalists become targets of disparagement or harassment. Confrontation, oral or even physical attacks are not rare in our region," said Kiska.
The Slovak president praised the focus of GLOBSEC 2018 on artificial intelligence and innovations in digital domain.
"Our security is not only the troops we are able to deploy, or the tanks we have. In the world we live in, leadership in cutting edge technologies, is what makes the difference in our ability to defend ourselves. As we can see in cyber-attacks, interference in the elections in Europe and in the U.S., or in massive propaganda, we face, it's not a question of some distant future," said Kiska.
