The European Commission could freeze billions of euros in assistance over a controversial criminal justice reform

The EU is reportedly moving forward with its threat to withhold funds from Slovakia which led to Bratislava’s removal of a special anti-graft prosecutor in a recent round of criminal code reforms. Prime Minister Robert Fico has accused Brussels of political bias.

Sources cited by Bloomberg on Sunday said the European Commission is considering several options to penalize Bratislava financially. One proposal would involve a so-called conditionality mechanism, allowing the freezing of some the €12.8 billion ($14.2 bn) allocated to Slovakia under the EU’s cohesion program. Brussels may also “claw back” all or part of the €2.7 billion ($3 bn) in Covid-19 grants Bratislava has received from the bloc.

Slovakia’s special prosecution unit, the USP, was created in 2004 and shut down in March of this year. Its last leader, Daniel Lipsic, also served as the justice minister in the government that ousted Fico’s first cabinet from power in 2010. During his successful run to become prime minister for a third time in 2023, Fico accused the USP of targeting his nationalist Smer-SD party with politically motivated probes.

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”This evil in the form of Lipsic must end, and we are doing that forcefully and thoroughly,” Fico told journalists in December 2023, after winning the election.

Opposition party Progressive Slovakia accused the premier of seeking “impunity and revenge” with a “blitzkrieg against the rule of law”.

The European Commission warned Bratislava in February that its reform would have “a direct and significant negative impact on EU law and the Union’s financial interests,” according to a letter to Slovak Justice Minister Boris Susko, quoted by the media.

Brussels previously used the conditionality mechanism to punish Hungary for perceived backsliding on the rule of law. Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Fico have both accused Brussels of infringing on the sovereignty of member states and mishandling the Ukraine crisis.

After the Slovakian anti-graft body was scrapped, EU sources indicated that the bloc would not be hasty in punishing Bratislava.

”Currently, we don’t see Slovakia as a major problem in foreign affairs, as regards handling Ukraine for example,” an EU diplomat told Reuters at the time. Another official said Hungary’s alienation served as an example for the bloc.

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The wider Slovakian reform was suspended for months, while the Constitutional Court deliberated on the issue. After it approved most of the changes in early June, parliament tweaked the legislation in what Susko called an attempt to mitigate the risk of retaliation by the EU.