Slovak populist Prime Minister Robert Fico has again delayed approval of the latest 18^th round of EU sanctions against Russia, blaming his latest blocking on the opposition parties in Slovakia.

“I’m really sad that we didn’t reach this agreement today. I must say that we were really close to reassuring Slovakia,” EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas was quoted as saying by the Guardian and other media on July 15.   

Kallas added that “the Commission has delivered what they [Slovaks] asked for,” and that “now, the ball is in Slovakia’s court, and we must get this deal done. It has been already two months.” Approval of the sanctions package could still take place this week.   

Fico blamed the Slovak opposition for yet another blocking of the sanctions after opposition leaders criticised Fico for damaging the Slovak reputation abroad, while not negotiating with the EC towards any concrete goals.   

“Slovak opposition ditched the European Commission,” Fico wrote on his Facebook social media page in a post in which he also published a letter from EC’s President Ursula von der Leyen in which she assured Fico that EC’s Task Force “will provide tailored assistance to Slovakia” in the EU-wide phase-out of Russian energy imports by 2028.

As bne IntelliNews covered earlier this week, Fico announced he was anticipating “a deal” with the EC on July 15.

Fico also wrote in his Facebook post that he shared the letter “together with the offered guarantees” to leaders of “all the relevant political parties,” and that they described “the guarantees of the European Commission for the Slovak Republic as NOTHING.”   

Michal Šimečka, leader of the largest opposition party, centrist Progressive Slovakia, told Fico earlier on July 15 that he “failed” and that “he is trying to pull the opposition into [his] game to lie to his voters.”

Liberal opposition stepped up their criticism of Fico’s blocking of the sanctions package in recent days, with some suggesting that Fico’s real objective is to mobilise the anti-establishment electorate in the country for which Fico’s Smer party competes with its junior ruling coalition party, the ultranationalist SNS, and non-parliamentary neo-fascist Republika.

“Instead of cooperation and coordination of steps in accordance with agreements on the European level, [the] Prime Minister and the Smer party keep igniting tensions on domestic as well as international level,” the opposition Christian Democratic KDH stated in a party statement released earlier this week and shared by Slovak media. 

“In reality, Fico did not negotiate anything for Slovakia,” the leader of the opposition neoliberal SaS, Branislav Gröhling, was quoted as saying by the daily SME.

In a previous development, Fico made the approval of the 18^th sanctions package conditional on obtaining energy guarantees for Slovakia in connection with the phase-out of Russian energy imports, which he has criticised since the EU announced the plan in May.   

Slovakia nearly eradicated Russian gas imports during the winter of 2022-2023, but imports spiked following the return of the Fico-led government in the autumn of 2023.

Slovakia has a valid contract with Gazprom until 2034, under which the Russian side is committed to sending its gas to Slovakia for free, covering gas transit fees all the way to the Slovak border. 

Fico claimed Slovakia would face a lawsuit “for €16bn” if it steps away from the valid contract and also argued that it will incur “more expensive transit fees,” saying he was acting in the “national state interest” and that “we have never been in such a situation before,” stressing that in the past Slovakia has served as a key gas transit hub.