Fico Calls Merz’s EU Budget Ultimatum a ‘Textbook Case of Blackmail’

Slovak and Czech ministers gathered in Bratislava on Tuesday for a joint cabinet meeting that Robert Fico said would be anything but routine, after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made fresh Ukraine financing an “essential prerequisite” for approving the European Union’s next long-term budget.

“Just as Mr Merz talks about using his veto, I can say exactly the same. We have the same veto power as the German federal chancellor,” Fico said as he welcomed Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

“What the federal chancellor is doing is a textbook case of blackmail, and I reject it. We are a sovereign country. We are the Slovak Republic. We have our own views.”

Hungary and Bulgaria have likewise refused to make approval of the 2028–2034 Multiannual Financial Framework conditional on a new funding package for Kyiv.

Four Capitals Push Back

Merz set out the demand in a Friday letter to European Council President António Costa, which became public on Monday.

Babiš said Merz “probably doesn’t realise” that the proposed EU budget already earmarks €100 billion for Ukraine. Those funds, however, would not be available until 2028, while Kyiv faces an estimated €70 billion shortfall next year.

Brussels has pledged to cover about two-thirds of that gap, roughly €45 billion, with partners including the U.K., Canada and Japan expected to provide the rest.

The new package would come on top of a €90 billion support loan agreed in December 2025, from which Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary secured exemptions.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who met Merz in Berlin on Tuesday, opposed linking the seven-year budget to Ukraine aid but declined to adopt Fico’s language.

“I do not consider this to be blackmail,” Magyar said, arguing that the issues were distinct and that Hungary, wrestling with a high public deficit, could not commit to fresh European-level debt.

In Varna, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev also cited deficit pressures in seeking an exemption from future credit lines to Ukraine, while saying Sofia would keep supporting Kyiv through other means, including energy flows.

“Bulgaria is in no way blocking the decisions at the Council level that are taken in unity for everyone to support (Ukraine) as they can,” Radev said.

Merz Defends the Link

Speaking alongside Magyar, Merz said support for Ukraine “is a shared European responsibility, not the responsibility of individual member states,” and that financing Kyiv in the coming years “naturally belongs within the context of these budget negotiations.”

“It’s not a good option to continue down this path. Ukraine policy should be fully included in the European Union budget,” he said, adding that “at least four countries think differently.”

In his letter, Merz wrote that “supporting Ukraine is a matter of our indivisible European security, and so must be the burden sharing for that support.”

Germany is the EU’s largest net contributor. The four holdouts are net recipients and belong to the “Friends of Cohesion,” a group of 17 governments seeking to protect cohesion and farm spending in the next budget — a stance that has already put them at odds with frugal contributors led by Berlin.

Aid fatigue is also hanging over European capitals as they prepare a new package for 2027.

Funding Fight Heads to Dublin

EU leaders will take up Ukraine’s financing gap at an informal summit in Dublin on Thursday and Friday. Both the budget and any new aid instrument require unanimity, giving every capital a veto.

A new round of joint borrowing has emerged as a leading option for the EU’s share, though no instrument has been agreed.

Fico said Tuesday would not be “business as usual” and that Bratislava was ready to talk, including at length with Prague, about “where we stand and what we’re going to do.”