Slovak PM Robert Fico said his country is ready to make a deal and approve the EU’s 18th sanction package against Russia in exchange for guarantees from Brussels that Slovakia will not be left alone with the costly burden of switching off Russian gas from 2028, when the EU plans to force all member states to abandon Russian energy.
Slovakia and Hungary—landlocked nations heavily dependent on Russian pipeline gas—have warned that being forced to switch to Western alternatives could send household energy bills soaring two- to fourfold overnight. They have pushed for full opt-outs from the planned phase-out and used their veto power over the separate sanctions package as leverage to secure those guarantees and prevent Brussels from undermining their energy security.
Now, Fico seems to be more willing to compromise, announcing on Saturday that Slovakia was ready to drop its veto during Tuesday’s EU Council meeting if others promise to help shoulder the cost of the transition.
“We need to win something in this fight, though it will not be a 100-0 result,” the prime minister said in Bratislava. “We want political commitments, guarantees from partners and the Commission that this problem will not remain only on Slovakia’s back,” he explained.
Fico also said he had been in talks with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish PM Donald Tusk, discussing, among other things, the possibility of introducing caps on the transit fees Slovakia would have to pay for alternative supply routes.
“We want to resolve this by Tuesday because tensions are rising on all sides,” he added, implying that Bratislava had been facing immense pressure from Brussels over its opposition to the sanctions.
At the same time, there’s no indication so far that a similar deal would be on the table for Hungary, or if it would be willing to accept it. If cut off from Russian pipeline gas overnight, the country would become overly dependent on a single source: LNG via Croatia, which has increased its transit fees fivefold since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Besides, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó argued that member states’ sovereign right to decide on the source of their energy imports is guaranteed by the EU treaties (Art. 194 of TFEU), and that Brussels has no legal ground to implement the measure without a special procedure and unanimous approval.
“Under EU treaties, energy policy remains a national competence,” the minister wrote on X. “No institution has the right to dictate what energy source we use, in what quantity, from whom, or when.”
Yet, the Commission is still trying to bypass the treaties by framing the decision as an internal trade issue that affects the single market instead of foreign and sanctions policy, and thereby needing only qualified majority approval in the Council to make it binding for all member states.
That’s why Hungary and Slovakia had no choice but to leverage their veto on the sanctions package, which they otherwise have no problem approving, trying to exert pressure where they still can.
Meanwhile, another country also came out in opposition to the 18th sanction package at the last minute. According to reports, Malta raised its objections to the Commission’s recent proposal of setting a “floating” price cap on Russian energy exports at 15% below the market price on Sunday.
Such a measure would replace the current $60/barrel cap on Russian oil, which has become obsolete thanks to dropping prices in recent months, ensuring that Russia could only sell energy to European transport companies at a loss at all times.
Greece and Cyprus also expressed concerns over the plan, but they haven’t floated the possibility of vetoing the sanctions over it so far.
