{"id":415851,"date":"2025-01-09T17:50:58","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T16:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/09\/slovacchia-ucraina-fico-gas-russo\/"},"modified":"2025-01-09T18:29:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-09T17:29:19","slug":"ficos-slovakia-continues-tug-of-war-with-ukraine-over-russian-gas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/09\/ficos-slovakia-continues-tug-of-war-with-ukraine-over-russian-gas\/","title":{"rendered":"Fico’s Slovakia continues tug-of-war with Ukraine over Russian gas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – “A good and open discussion<\/strong> on the energy situation and the wider implications of the end of Russian gas transit through Ukraine<\/strong>.”\u00a0This is what was stated in\u00a0<\/span>a meagre joint statement<\/a> by Slovak Prime Minister\u00a0<\/span>Robert Fico<\/strong>\u00a0and Energy Commissioner\u00a0<\/span>Dan J\u00f8rgensen<\/strong>\u00a0at the end of a conversation in Brussels held this morning (January 9).<\/span><\/p>\n

The issue is becoming incandescent for Bratislava, which\u00a0depends heavily on cheap methane from Moscow<\/strong>. However, as Kyiv\u00a0refuses to renew contracts with Gazprom<\/strong>\u00a0that provided for its\u00a0transit through Ukrainian territory<\/strong>, gas no longer reaches Slovakia. To this end, populist and pro-Russian Prime Minister\u00a0Robert Fico<\/strong>\u00a0has threatened Ukraine,\u00a0escalating tensions<\/strong>\u00a0between the two countries that, at least theoretically, should be on the same side of the fence.<\/span><\/p>\n

The note further states that talks between the Slovak government and the EU executive will continue “at both the political and technical level.” It specifies that it was “agreed to\u00a0establish a high-level working group<\/strong>” to unravel\u00a0the issue and “identify options based on a\u00a0joint assessment of the situation<\/strong>.”<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Fico<\/a>
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, December 22, 2024 (photo: Gavriil Grigorov\/Afp via Sputnik)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The talks between Fico and J\u00f8rgensen were\u00a0initially scheduled\u00a0<\/a>for Tuesday (January 7) but were\u00a0cancelled at the last minute<\/strong>\u00a0and postponed to today. In their original format,\u00a0Ukrainian representatives<\/strong>\u00a0were also scheduled to discuss in greater depth possible alternative solutions to\u00a0ensure Slovakia’s flow of the gas it needs<\/strong>\u00a0and to\u00a0recompose the clash between Bratislava and Kiev<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

As already announced<\/a> by the premier earlier this month, Bratislava is reportedly considering a series of countermeasures<\/strong> that are de facto retaliation for Kyiv’s decision to suspend gas transit from the Federation to Central and Eastern European countries (first and foremost Austria, Slovakia, and Hungary) through its territory.<\/p>\n

Among the options on Fico’s table are\u00a0the\u00a0cutting of subsidies to Ukrainian refugees<\/strong> present in the central European state, the end of electricity exports to Kyiv<\/strong> (whose infrastructure, under constant bombardment by Moscow, is unable to meet the needs of the country, which is consequently facing a severe energy crisis), and the veto<\/strong>\u2014parallel to that threatened by the Hungarian premier Viktor Orb\u00e1n<\/strong>\u2014on Ukraine’s accession to the twelve-star club<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky<\/strong> anticipated<\/a> in unequivocal terms before the end of 2024 that, upon the natural expiration of supply contracts with Gazprom<\/strong>, the Russian state gas giant, he did not intend to renew them to stop\u00a0subsidizing the Kremlin’s war<\/strong> of aggression. And so it was<\/a>: taps closed since last January 1.<\/p>\n

\"Volodymyr<\/a>
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (photo: European Union)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At that point, Bratislava began to speak up by threatening “consequences”<\/strong>. During a press conference following his meeting with the EU Energy Commissioner, Fico has declared<\/a> that, should Ukraine continue to obstruct Russian fossil fuel imports, “the Slovak government will introduce tough reciprocal measures<\/strong>,” ventilating political and economic sanctions<\/strong> against a candidate country.<\/p>\n

According to the Slovak leader, repeatedly criticized by European partners and Zelensky<\/strong> himself for his closeness with Vladimir Putin<\/strong>\u2014in whose presence he went<\/a> just before Christmas in an extreme attempt to settle the Russian gas stop<\/strong>\u2014”we cannot ignore” the fact that “there is no EU legislation or sanctions system that prevents Ukraine from continuing gas transit; otherwise there would be a risk of “increasing tensions in the EU and bilateral relations<\/strong>” with Moscow.<\/p>\n

Fico claims that his country\u00a0will lose up to \u20ac500 million a year<\/strong>\u00a0in transit fees (which it used to earn by pumping Russian gas to Czechia and Hungary). However, the Commission states from Brussels that\u00a0closing the Russian-Ukrainian pipeline<\/strong>\u00a0has not affected the Twenty-Seven’s energy supply<\/strong>\u00a0or resulted in\u00a0price hikes<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The premier met with EU Energy Commissioner Dan J\u00f8rgensen to discuss how to ensure that Bratislava is not left in the cold without cheap methane supplies from Moscow, cut off in early January after Kyiv refused to renew contracts with Gazprom for gas transit through its territory<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":415848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25707],"tags":[26042,26359,27555,26360,25789],"class_list":["post-415851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-politics","tag-robert-fico-en","tag-gas-russo-en","tag-slovakia-and","tag-ukrainian-en-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415851"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":415858,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415851\/revisions\/415858"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/415848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}