One government out of 27 is holding up part of the EU’s sanctions on Russia, and it has said why: it wants a review every six months. Slovakia is the only EU member that, at ambassador level in Brussels, has blocked a proposed 12-month extension of part of the anti-Russian sanctions, according to an analysis by the Lansing Institute.
Extending the measures needs the support of all 27 member states. That gives Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government what the institute calls disproportionate leverage ahead of a mid-September deadline.
Sanctions, farm money and a single strategy
The analysis ties the sanctions stance to Fico’s talk about the EU’s next multiannual budget. He has already threatened to use a veto if Brussels cuts funding for farmers or, in Bratislava’s view, ignores the specific features of Slovak agriculture. The Lansing Institute reads sanctions, the budget, farm subsidies and relations with Ukraine as folding gradually into one negotiating strategy: use every area that needs unanimity to extract concessions.
Slovakia also wants individual Russian businessmen removed from the sanctions lists. Unless compelling Slovak economic or legal interests lie behind that demand, the institute argues, it matches one of Moscow’s main aims, which is the gradual erosion of personal sanctions on Russia’s political and economic elites.
Why six months matters
The institute’s argument is about frequency. Annual renewals would give the Kremlin fewer chances to lobby individual governments or provoke a political crisis around each vote. A six-month cycle leaves two regular “windows of vulnerability” a year. So the dispute is not only about six months versus 12. It is, in the analysis’s words, a struggle over how often Russia gets to test EU unity.
The institute is careful on one point. The claim that Fico directly “works for the Kremlin” would need separate evidence of coordination, financing or another direct link. On behaviour alone, it says, the accurate description is a structural convergence between Bratislava’s positions and Russia’s strategic interests. It also offers domestic explanations: anti-Brussels rhetoric mobilises part of the Smer electorate, presents Fico as a defender of Slovak economic interests and adds weight in EU talks. Slovakia has historically relied on Russian energy and transit infrastructure, and Fico can frame ties with Russia as a matter of prices and energy security. The Lansing Institute adds that Moscow lost a reliable Hungarian blocking vote, and Slovakia has since become more valuable to it.
What Brussels could do
The analysis sets out several options and rates them. Budget leverage looks strongest. Slovakia wants strong cohesion and farm funding in the 2028 to 2034 budget, and in May 2026 it launched a joint declaration by 16 states defending money for regions and farmers. Other capitals can tell Fico they are under no obligation to back his budget priorities while he blocks Russia decisions. Budget talks are already hard, with Germany demanding substantial cuts to a proposed budget of nearly €2 trillion.
Freezing Slovak funds is a harder route. The EU’s conditionality mechanism allows payments to be suspended for rule-of-law breaches that directly threaten its financial interests, but Brussels cannot legally freeze money just because Fico blocks sanctions. The Commission can open infringement cases and refer them to the Court of Justice of the EU, which can impose financial penalties. In 2026 it pursued cases against Slovakia over discriminatory fuel pricing and the incorrect application of rules on legal aid.
Article 7 of the EU treaty, which can ultimately suspend a state’s voting rights in the Council, is no solution to this problem, the analysis says. It protects fundamental values and is not meant to punish a foreign-policy veto, and the threshold is extremely high. Political isolation may do more: major countries could coordinate in advance without Bratislava, or move some Ukraine assistance into coalition formats where a Slovak veto carries no weight.
The institute’s final point is about bargaining. The 27th vote gives Slovakia the right to say no. It does not oblige the other 26 to accept its budget demands.
