The European Parliament has voted on a resolution calling on the European Commission to consider freezing EU funds for Slovakia. The decision was driven by concerns over threats to the rule of law and the EU’s financial interests posed by Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government.
418 MEPs voted in favour of the resolution, which was incorporated into the EU’s 2024 budget discharge report, while 207 voted against.
MEPs — including German Green MEP Daniel Freund, the report’s author — accuse the Fico government of systematically undermining state institutions, judicial independence, and anti-corruption mechanisms. In their view, these actions create risks for the effective use of European funds and erode the rule of law in the country.
The resolution calls on the European Commission to activate the so-called rule-of-law conditionality mechanism — a tool that allows the suspension of EU budget payments where there is a threat to the Union’s financial interests. Should the Commission follow the recommendation, Slovakia could lose access to billions of euros from cohesion funds and the recovery plan.
This marks the first time the European Parliament has directly proposed applying this mechanism to Slovakia. Similar procedures were previously used against Hungary and Poland.
Bratislava has yet to comment on the outcome of the vote. The Fico government has previously rejected accusations of backsliding on democratic standards, describing EU criticism as politically motivated.
The European Parliament’s decision is non-binding. The final call on any potential freeze of funds rests with the European Commission.