(Bloomberg) -- Slovakia’s Robert Fico returned to the nation’s premiership with a pledge to challenge European Union policies including migration and sanctions against Russia. 

President Zuzana Caputova appointed Fico and his cabinet at a ceremony in the capital Bratislava on Wednesday, less than a month after he won an election with pledges to boost social spending. Fico, who served as prime minister over three terms between 2006 and 2018, may make an appearance alongside EU peers in Brussels this week.  

The 59-year-old premier, a Social Democrat who has become more vocal in opposing measures against the Kremlin, migration and LGBTQ rights, will join ally Viktor Orban of Hungary in seeking to disrupt liberal European conventions. Taking a cue from Orban, Fico has promised changes to Slovakia’s judiciary, police and the special prosecutor’s office. 

While Fico wants to keep the eastern European nation of 5.4 million in the EU and NATO, he campaigned to stop Slovakia’s weapon shipments to Kyiv and to restore a “basic standardization of relations” between the 27-member bloc and Russia. 

The new premier had aimed to be sworn in in time to attend an EU summit meeting in Brussels, which takes place Thursday and Friday. He said he’ll lobby to maintain unanimous voting among EU members on major decisions. 

“If a country were to lose the veto right, then membership in the European Union loses its meaning,” Fico told the public broadcaster RTVS on Tuesday. 

Fico’s Smer will lead a three-party coalition, which includes center-left Voice under erstwhile ally Peter Pellegrini and the Slovak National Party, which shares Fico’s opposition to migration and LGBTQ rights. 

--With assistance from Daniel Hornak.

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