Slovakia will not join a new loan to cover Ukraine’s €70bn funding gap, Prime Minister Robert Fico told German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, while Hungary opposes linking Ukraine financing to the EU’s next 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 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 put the cat amongst the pigeons this week by saying all EU members must contribute to the new loan, that comes on top of the existing €90bn EU loan approved in April, or Berlin would block the passages of the EU’s seven year 2028-2035 Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) budget. Germany is the biggest contributor to the EU budget; both Slovakia and Hungary are net beneficiaries.
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 the demand as “blackmail” at a joint government meeting in Bratislava on November 10. The fight pits the EU’s biggest net payer against the members most dependent on its farm and cohesion money, and comes as Europe’s appetite for paying Ukraine’s war bill is fading.
Merz answered Fico the same day. Supporting Ukraine is “a shared European task, not a task for individual member states,” he told a press conference in Berlin. “That is why the question of how we finance Ukraine over the next few years, if necessary, naturally belongs in the context of these budget negotiations.”
With the ultimatum, Merz is adopting veto-tactics long used by the Central European Ukraine-sceptics of blocking unrelated key EU votes to get their way on Ukraine-related decisions they don’t like.
Ukraine’s money comes mainly from the €90bn Ukraine Support Loan and paid in two €45bn tranches, for 2026 and 2027, after months of Hungarian and Slovak vetoes. By November 5 the Commission had paid out €24.1bn of this year’s tranche and still owed €20.9bn. It follows the €50bn Ukraine Facility for 2024-2027.
That is no longer enough. Kyiv faces a €70bn gap in its 2027 financing, and EC leaders , not all the EU member states, accepted the estimate at their October summit. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Merz have discussed ways to close the gap, and Economy Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said on November 9 that the bloc aims to cover about €45bn of the €70bn, with joint EU borrowing among the options. Merz is also seeking predictable funding for Ukraine from 2028, including money for interest on existing debt, the Financial Times reported.
Fico has refused to join any new money since October 16, when he said Slovakia and Hungary would not take part in a €70bn package. Slovakia is not contributing to the €90bn loan either: Bratislava, Budapest and Prague won exemptions from guaranteeing it last December.
Hungarian rebuff
When Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar ousted former Prime Minister Viktor Orban in recent elections, his landslide victory was hailed as Hungary’s “return to the EU.” However, his term unfolds, Maygar’s policies appear to be increasingly similar to those of his predecessor, albeit delivered in a slightly less combinative way.
Magyar already clashed with Merz over the same issue in Berlin on November 10, during his second visit to the German capital since taking office, Rapporteur reported. 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. He also wants farm and cohesion funding protected.
Merz said he understood the domestic politics in Hungary and elsewhere, but asked for understanding that “the largest contributor to the European Union’s budget, and at the same time the country that also makes the largest contribution to supporting Ukraine, attaches importance to us resolving this fundamental question together.”
Bulgaria, Czechia in the middle
Bulgaria has taken a softer line. Prime Minister Rumen Radev said in Varna 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.
The opt-outs matter less for a new loan, which could again go ahead without the holdouts, as the €90bn did, than for the budget, which needs every member’s signature. Merz has asked for the funding gap to go on the agenda of the informal leaders’ meeting in Dublin on November 13, and the budget itself goes to an extraordinary summit in Brussels on November 26-27. The decision on how to raise the new €70bn is expected at the EU summit in December.