Fico accuses Merz of blackmail over threat to veto EU budget

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has hit back after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz threatened to veto the EU budget unless funding for Ukraine is secured.

Merz said he would block the EU’s seven-year budget if no agreement is reached on financial assistance for Ukraine.

The chancellor’s intervention has angered Central European leaders who are net beneficiaries of EU funds but do not want to take part in the next round of funding to support Ukraine’s war effort.

“What the chancellor is doing is typical blackmail, and I will not bow to it,” Fico told reporters in Bratislava.

Fico spoke alongside his Czech counterpart, Andrej Babiš, whose government has refused to participate in a future loan to Ukraine.

“I do not know why he said this,” Babiš said, referring to Merz’s stance.

Merz wants EU leaders to discuss Ukraine’s financing needs at a summit in Dublin on Friday.

In a letter to European Council President António Costa, who will chair the meeting, obtained by The Guardian, Merz wrote:

“We must maintain our support for Ukraine in its struggle to defend itself. This is our shared vital interest. Yet bilateral aid provided to Ukraine is distributed unevenly, with the burden shouldered mostly by only a few member states.”

The EU agreed last year to provide a €90 billion loan to Ukraine, intended to cover two-thirds of its military and civilian spending for 2026 and 2027.

Since then, however, Russia’s relentless bombardment has placed a heavier financial burden on Kyiv, prompting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to ask for €70 billion to plug the budget deficit.

The EU has endorsed Zelenskyy’s figures and pledged to find €45 billion. Ukraine’s other allies, such as Britain and Canada, are expected to cover the rest.

Last year, Merz launched an initiative to tap €210 billion in frozen Russian state assets held in the EU, but the plan fell through due to opposition led by Belgium, which holds most of the funds in Brussels.

The €90 billion loan was the backup plan. Having opted out of that loan, Hungary, Slovakia, and Czechia indicated that they would not take part in the next round either.

Bulgaria joined these three member states following the election of Prime Minister Rumen Radev last April.

The question of funding for Ukraine is now spilling over into the fraught negotiations on the 2028-34 EU budget.

Germany, the largest net contributor, wants substantial cuts to the proposed budget and opposes the EU providing generous funding to member states that refuse to contribute to Ukraine’s financial needs.

Merz states in his letter that a “collective commitment without exceptions” is a “fundamental prerequisite” for closing Ukraine’s financing gap and for “discussing other matters, particularly those with financial implications.”

He also notes that, in the context of the EU’s next seven-year budget, known as the Multiannual Financial Framework, all member states must contribute to a “robust” financial perspective for Ukraine from 2028 onwards.

A German government official said:

“For the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) to be successfully concluded, it is vital that all EU member states provide financial support to Ukraine.”

Berlin is also aiming to shift decision-making on funding for Ukraine from unanimity to qualified majority voting, in an effort to prevent a single government from blocking EU decisions.

The letter reflects mounting frustration among the EU’s northern member states, Ukraine’s most generous backers, over lower contributions from other EU countries in Central and Southern Europe.

The task of brokering an agreement on the budget falls to Costa, the former Portuguese prime minister.

Costa wants a deal by the end of the year, ahead of elections in France, Poland, and Italy in 2027 that could complicate the process.

A spokesperson for Costa confirmed receipt of the letter without elaborating on details. “President Costa will dedicate time to the Ukraine issue at the informal European Council meeting in Dublin this week,” the spokesperson said, adding that funding for Ukraine would be addressed at a dedicated summit on the EU budget scheduled for 26-27 November.