Fico: New EU loan will not resolve Ukraine conflict

Moscow (ANTARA) – Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Saturday (7 November) that a new European Union (EU) loan for Ukraine would only prolong the conflict and would not help bring it to an end.

After a meeting of European leaders in Brussels in mid-October, Fico said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had asked the EU for an additional €70 billion (US$78 billion, or around Rp1.4 quadrillion) to fund military needs in 2027.

Slovakia will not take part in the assistance.

“There is now a proposal for a new €70 billion loan for Ukraine. I will use this opportunity to reiterate that Slovakia will not participate, because it would only further prolong a military conflict that cannot be resolved by military means,” Fico said in an interview with Slovak television station TA3.

The Slovak prime minister criticised the EU for having no plan to resolve the conflict in Ukraine.

“At present, Europe has only a military plan,” Fico said. He also said reaching an agreement on the EU’s new budget would be difficult.

According to Fico, major EU contributors are refusing to increase their payments because they face domestic problems. Meanwhile, smaller countries want funding for regional development and agriculture to be maintained. These circumstances, he said, would make drawing up the new budget considerably more difficult.

On Friday (6 November), Fico said that several EU member-state prime ministers had threatened to cut funding in the bloc’s new budget allocated to addressing development disparities between regions in Slovakia.

Fico said the threat came because Bratislava had refused to support the proposed €70 billion loan for Ukraine. Slovakia opposes cuts to funding intended to address regional development disparities.