Slovakia will not join a new loan to cover Ukraine's 70 billion euro funding gap, Prime Minister Robert Fico told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as a bitter fight over who pays for Kyiv threatens to hold up the European Union's next seven-year budget.
"Slovakia will not participate in providing another loan to Ukraine for an amount of 70 billion euros. Period. We've done enough," Fico said in Bratislava late on November 10. He added that he would not stop others from lending: "I can't stop Germany if it has the means to do so. I can't stop France or others if they want to help Ukraine with money."
Merz has said all EU members must contribute to the new loan, which would come on top of the existing 90 billion euro EU loan for Ukraine approved in April, or Berlin would block passage of the bloc's 2028-2035 long-term budget. Germany is the EU's biggest budget contributor, while Slovakia and Hungary are net beneficiaries of EU funds.
In total, four net recipients of EU money - Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Czechia - have opted out of contributing more. Fico and Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis rejected Merz's demand as "blackmail" at a joint government meeting in Bratislava on November 10. Merz answered the same day, saying supporting Ukraine is "a shared European task, not a task for individual member states."
Hungary's Prime Minister Peter Magyar, who ousted Viktor Orban in recent elections, clashed with Merz over the same issue in Berlin on November 10. Magyar promised to be a constructive partner in the budget talks but opposes linking the next seven-year budget to Ukraine financing and rejected any obligation for Hungary to take on loans or give guarantees for Kyiv, state news agency MTI reported.
Bulgaria has taken a softer line. Prime Minister Rumen Radev said on November 10 that Sofia has "no money for loans" to Ukraine because of its deficit, but will not block EU decisions to fund Kyiv. Babis has said the 2028-2034 budget proposal already carries money for Ukraine and that Czechia will not guarantee new borrowing for it.
Kyiv faces a 70 billion euro gap in its 2027 financing. Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on November 9 that the bloc aims to cover about 45 billion euros of it, with joint EU borrowing among the options. Merz has asked for the funding gap to go on the agenda of an informal leaders' meeting in Dublin on November 13, and the budget itself goes to an extraordinary summit in Brussels on November 26-27. A decision on how to raise the new 70 billion euros is expected at the EU summit in December.
