EU nation to veto new Russia sanctions
Slovakia will block the EU's 18th sanctions package against Russia unless Brussels resolves its concerns over the planned phase-out of Russian energy, Prime Minister Robert Fico has announced. Although the energy measures are set to be presented as trade legislation – thus needing only a qualified majority for approval – Fico argues that they relate to sanctions and should be treated as such.
The issue stems from the European Commission's RePowerEU plan, which aims to eliminate all Russian energy imports by 2028. The initiative is due to be discussed at the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, alongside the new sanctions package, which mostly targets Russia's energy and financial sectors. Fico has insisted the measures against Russian energy actually fall under the bloc's sanctions regime and should be unanimously approved. Fico said Slovakia will request a postponement of the vote and, if denied, will vote against it.
'As for tomorrow's vote, Slovakia will not vote on the 18th sanctions package,' he stated at a parliamentary committee meeting on Thursday. 'We consider it to be one package that includes RePowerEU, and we believe that unless the fundamental issues are resolved, we cannot adopt any further sanctions.'
He warned that the regulation would endanger Slovakia's energy security and cause price hikes. He also noted that Brussels has yet to provide answers on how it would compensate for rising gas prices or handle potential arbitration with Gazprom. Fico warned that if Slovakia breaks its long-term supply contract with the Russian energy giant, it could face up to €20 billion ($23 billion) in penalties.
'Let's take this seriously. Slovakia has gone from being a country at the beginning of the pipe to a country at the end of the pipe…There may be shortages, prices will go up... RePowerEU is harmful,' he said, calling the initiative 'ideological nonsense.'
Hungary has also voiced opposition to the plan. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said Budapest and Bratislava had jointly blocked the package when it was discussed at the foreign ministers' meeting earlier this week, warning that the proposed phase-out would 'destroy Hungary's energy security' and sharply raise utility costs. He signaled that Hungary also planned to vote against the new sanctions package.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned sanctions as illegal and self-defeating, particularly those targeting energy, noting how energy prices in the EU surged after the initial measures against Russia were imposed in 2022. Commenting on the sanctions debates, Kremlin investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev praised Slovakia and Hungary on X for 'doing what Brussels won't: fighting to keep the EU globally competitive.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Russia Today
36 minutes ago
- Russia Today
95% of Hungarians oppose Ukraine joining EU
An overwhelming majority of Hungarians oppose Ukraine's accession to the EU, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has announced, citing the results of the Voks 2025 referendum. The consultative vote, which asked a single question – 'Do you support Ukraine's European Union membership?' – ran from mid-April to June 20. According to Orban, 2,168,431 Hungarians, or 95% of those who voted, rejected Ukraine's EU aspirations. '95% of the votes cast were 'no' and 5% answered 'yes'… I will say today, in the voice of more than two million Hungarians, that Hungary does not support Ukraine's accession to the EU. These are the bare facts,' Orban told reporters ahead of the EU Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels on Thursday. He emphasized that Hungary's position cannot be bypassed, as Ukraine's membership requires unanimous consent from all 27 EU member states. 'A unanimous decision is needed even to launch negotiations on the matter. We don't have it, therefore they should not happen. Nothing can happen today that has a legal effect on the matter of Ukraine's EU membership… because Hungary does not support it,' Orban stressed. Ukraine made EU accession its national goal back in 2019 and officially applied to join the bloc in 2022, shortly after hostilities with Russia escalated. The EU granted Kiev candidate status in June 2022 and set a target date for 2030. Critics argue Ukraine's economy and institutions are unprepared, and that membership would place an unbearable financial strain on the bloc. Even Poland, one of Kiev's key backers, has shown declining support for Ukraine's bid. A recent IBRiS poll commissioned by Defence24 outlet found only 35% of Poles support Ukraine joining the EU – down from 85% in 2022. Hungary has consistently opposed Ukraine's integration into both the EU and NATO, warning that it could heighten tensions with Russia. Orban argued the move could lead to an 'endless war' in Europe, forcing EU taxpayers to fund Ukraine's army. His adviser Balazs Orban previously estimated that Kiev's full integration would cost the bloc around €2.5 trillion ($2.9 trillion), more than 12 times the EU's current budget. Moscow has firmly opposed Ukraine's bid to join NATO but has taken a more neutral stance on its EU ambitions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously said Ukraine has the 'sovereign right' to join the bloc if it remains focused on economic ties rather than military alignment. However, Russian officials have warned the EU's civilian-military distinction has been fading. Peskov recently described the EU's new military spending plans as 'rabid militarization,' while Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the bloc 'has degraded into an openly militarized entity.'
Russia Today
2 hours ago
- Russia Today
Iran truce could inspire Ukraine peace
A ceasefire between Iran and Israel, declared this week after a brief escalation, could influence the Ukraine conflict, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff has said, expressing hope for renewed peace efforts between Kiev and Moscow. The hostilities began on June 13 when Israel launched strikes on Iran, claiming Tehran was close to developing a nuclear bomb – allegations denied by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and US intelligence. The US joined the campaign – which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a step to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons – by striking Iranian nuclear sites. A ceasefire brokered by Washington came into effect on Tuesday. In a CNBC interview on Wednesday, Witkoff said the truce could serve as a model for resolving other conflicts. 'We are hopeful that this will lead to some very, very, very good things happening in the Russia-Ukraine resolution.' Russia has criticized the US bombing campaign, calling it a dangerous escalation and a violation of international law. The Foreign Ministry warned that these actions risk further destabilizing the region. Witkoff was reportedly instrumental in brokering the ceasefire after a brief but intense conflict between Iran and Israel that left hundreds dead in Iran, 25 in Israel, and thousands injured on both sides, according to official sources. He has also been a key figure behind kickstarting the Ukraine peace process. Russia and Ukraine resumed direct talks in Türkiye last month, reviving a diplomatic process that was paused by Kiev in 2022 after it opted to pursue victory on the battlefield with Western assistance. At their most recent meeting on June 2, Russia and Ukraine agreed to exchange prisoners and presented draft memorandums outlining their visions for a peace agreement. However, each side currently views the other's terms as unacceptable. Russia has stressed that any lasting agreement must reflect the current battlefield realities and Ukrainian neutrality. Trump, who vowed during the 2024 presidential election campaign to resolve the Ukraine conflict within 24 hours, recently described the promise as 'sarcastic.' He has repeatedly voiced frustration with both sides, warning that the US could impose sanctions on both Russia and Ukraine if the conflict does not come to an end soon.
Russia Today
3 hours ago
- Russia Today
Russia takes on the West's biggest obsession
When Russian President Vladimir Putin told the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last week that the world needs 'a new model of global growth,' many Western commentators heard only a familiar plea: lift the sanctions, drop the tariffs, stop using trade as a geopolitical cudgel. Important as those points are, they miss the larger ambition. Even if every punitive measure vanished tomorrow, the world economy would simply roll back to its early-2000s setting – fresh paint on an old engine. Putin's challenge cuts deeper: capitalism's traditional 'produce more, consume more' logic has hit its planetary and social limits, and Moscow is calling time on the illusion that endless expansion can continue unopposed. Since the first steam engines hissed into life in the 18th century, national success has been measured by rising GDP and swelling personal consumption. That linear model delivered astonishing gains –but it never cracked the problem of inequality. The gap between North and South stubbornly yawns; within many countries, the gulf between penthouse and pavement only widens. The promise that 'a rising tide lifts all boats' rings hollow for the majority still paddling in the shallows. Even starker are the material constraints. The capitalist appetite is infinite; the planet's resources are not. If the next three billion people push their consumption up to Western middle-class levels, our biosphere simply will not cope. Climate stress, ecological degradation and resource scarcity are already obvious. They will only intensify. Putin's 'leap into the future' therefore means more than de-weaponizing trade. It means replacing quantity-obsessed growth with what he called rationalization of consumption and production – a shift from bigger to better, from accumulation to sustainability. This is not a call for universal sackcloth or forced equalization. Eradicating poverty, ensuring food and energy security, and meeting basic human needs remain non-negotiable. But raw GDP will decline as a yardstick. A state's success will increasingly be judged by life expectancy, educational quality, environmental health, cultural vibrancy, scientific breakthroughs, social cohesion and the absence of corrosive political divides. That list is hardly utopian. Many governments already compile 'well-being indices' alongside budget spreadsheets. What Russia is urging is a coordinated effort – within BRICS, the SCO, the Eurasian Economic Union and beyond – to turn those indicators into shared development targets. Sceptics ask how any economy can thrive without relentless material churn. The answer lies, partly, in the very technologies now unsettling labor markets. Artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, sixth-generation mobile networks and other breakthroughs are stripping out drudgery. They free people to pursue creative, scientific, and community-building roles – activities that enrich societies without battering the biosphere. The new growth model, in short, prizes human potential over disposable products. It values the software of civilization more than the hardware of mass consumption. That change will not come overnight, nor without friction. But the alternative is to race ever faster toward ecological overshoot and social fracture. Transitions of this scale can be smooth or cataclysmic. The best chance of an orderly shift is deliberate, multilateral coordination: • Trade that respects limits. Countries must keep markets open while discouraging wasteful, environmentally destructive patterns of demand and supply. • Shared modernization road-maps. National development plans – Russia's, China's, India's, Brazil's – should align where possible, exchanging technology and policy know-how to accelerate sustainable goals. • Cultural cross-pollination. A 'new Comintern,' as State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin once quipped, need not advance ideology but could champion anti-colonial, post-Western cultural dialogue – film, literature, research, education – that diversifies global narratives. BRICS, the SCO and the EAEU already possess the demographic and economic heft to pilot such experiments. They represent most of the world's population, a majority of global growth, and regions where consumption is still rising fastest. If these blocs can demonstrate that higher living standards need not equal higher emissions or deeper inequality, the model will sell itself. Critics in Washington, London, and Brussels dismiss Moscow's pitch as cover for its own geopolitical battles. Yet the underlying logic – finite resources, intolerable inequality, technological disruption – matches concerns voiced daily in Davos, at UN climate summits, and in IMF working papers. The difference is that Russia frames the problem as systemic, not managerial. Tinkering with carbon taxes or supply-chain 'friend-shoring' is cosmetic if the growth engine itself demands perpetual overdrive. From St. Petersburg, Putin's message was blunt: chasing an ever-rising output curve is obsolete. The 21st century will belong to states that balance reasonable sufficiency with genuine human flourishing – and that resist the temptation to weaponize economics when domestic politics falter. Building that world will test every government's ingenuity. But the alternative is a planet where growth's winners barricade themselves against a majority left behind and a climate tipping toward instability. Russia says a different path is possible. The question is whether the rest of the world is ready to step onto it – or whether we will keep sprinting along a road we know ends at a article was first published by Izvestia newspaper, and was translated and edited by the RT team.
