The European Commission is checking whether laws Ukraine’s parliament passed last week earn it a €3.7 billion ($4.3 billion) EU payment, spokesperson Balázs Ujvári told reporters in Brussels on 19 October. He also said Ukraine’s 2027 funding gap stands at about €70 billion, and that the EU “cannot do this all alone.” How Ukraine pays for Russia’s war next year now depends on reforms in Kyiv and on money from Europe and beyond.

Russia keeps striking Ukraine’s power grid and cities, and Kyiv already faces a hole in next year’s war budget before any new military spending. Foreign money keeps salaries, pensions, and repairs flowing while Ukraine spends its own revenue on defense. So each delayed payment is felt at home while Russia hits the energy system again.

Brussels reads Kyiv’s new laws before paying

The payment is the second tranche of the EU’s macro-financial assistance to Ukraine, and each one depends on reforms, Ujvári said at the Commission’s midday briefing.

“We saw that last week some important laws were adopted in the Rada, and we are in the process of analyzing these laws and we will formulate our assessment thereafter,” he said.

On its third attempt, parliament passed a law on 15 October ending the VAT exemption for foreign parcels worth up to €150 from 1 July 2027, and making online marketplaces collect the tax. The Commission had warned the law was one of 12 conditions for the tranche. Fewer than 1% of the 75 million parcels Ukrainians receive each year were taxed, and lawmakers had rejected the measure twice despite IMF pressure.

About €30 billion is in the pipeline for Ukraine this year, mostly under the EU’s €90 billion support loan, if reforms continue, Ujvári said.

A €70 billion gap for 2027

Current pledges leave a gap of about €70 billion for 2027, Ujvári said, even counting the €45 billion ($52 billion) the EU has set aside for next year and some partners’ commitments.

“We cannot do this all alone. Therefore, our partners in general must step up,” he said. “They have to come forward with pledges, and they have to deliver on those commitments.”

On 16 October, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked EU leaders for at least €70 billion more for 2027. They tasked the Commission with a proposal but set no deadline. Asked whether it would revisit using frozen Russian assets, Ujvári said it was “a little bit early” to discuss options in that detail. New EU borrowing has also grown costlier: 10-year rates rose from 3.2% to just above 4% in six months, he said.

The €90 billion loan was designed on the assumption that the war would end in 2026. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said Slovakia and Hungary would opt out of new aid but would not block others.

Zelensky asked EU leaders for an additional 70 billion euros to help cover Ukraine's defense and "resilience" needs in 2027, as Kyiv grapples with a budget shortfall amid escalating Russian attacks.

The Slovak-Ukrainian talks will be held in Lviv on Nov. 5 and focus on expanding border crossings, providing humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, and establishing a school for Ukrainian children in Bratislava.

Slovakia’s National Council voted on Tuesday evening to withdraw confidence from Tomáš Taraba after a dispute between the minister and the Slovak National Party (SNS), one of the three parties supporting Prime Minister Robert Fico’s government, developed into an open confrontation.

The motion was supported by 77 MPs. According to official Slovak news agency figures, 77 deputies were present for the vote and all voted for Taraba’s removal; 73 members of the 150-seat parliament were absent.

The decisive element was the participation of SNS deputies. Party chairman Andrej Danko had said earlier on Tuesday that he could guarantee the votes of seven MPs for Taraba’s dismissal, effectively allowing members of a governing party to combine with the opposition to remove a minister originally nominated by the SNS.

Under the Slovak constitution, a successful parliamentary vote of no confidence in an individual member of the government requires the president to dismiss that minister. President Peter Pellegrini will therefore have to act on parliament’s decision.

The vote has implications extending beyond control of the Environment Ministry. Fico has spent months trying to contain disputes within his coalition, which operates with only a narrow majority in the National Council.

Fico tried to stop the confrontation

The parliamentary vote came only a day after Fico attempted to prevent Taraba’s departure from triggering a wider coalition crisis.

The prime minister had previously proposed that Pellegrini dismiss Taraba following demands from the SNS. On Monday, however, Fico withdrew the proposal.

The Government Office said the decision was prompted by the risk to the coalition’s parliamentary majority, with Fico seeking additional time to resolve the dispute between Taraba and the SNS. Pellegrini subsequently accepted the withdrawal.

That intervention postponed Taraba’s removal by the president but did not resolve the political dispute.

The opposition Progressive Slovakia (PS) had already prepared a no-confidence motion and called for a vote to establish whether Fico still commanded a functioning majority. Its chairman Michal Šimečka said before the vote that the opposition would seek to bring the motion forward immediately when parliament met on Tuesday.

Danko then made clear that SNS deputies would support the move. The result produced an unusual parliamentary alignment: part of the governing coalition joined the opposition to remove a member of the government.

Months of tensions inside the coalition

The confrontation follows months of deteriorating relations between Taraba and Danko, despite Taraba having entered the government as an SNS nominee.

Taraba, Danko and Fico had reached an agreement in May under which the minister was expected to leave office by the end of September if relations with the SNS could not be repaired. By late August, however, the dispute remained unresolved.

Danko maintained that Taraba should step down, while Taraba repeatedly indicated that he had no intention of resigning voluntarily.

The dispute became more serious because Taraba’s departure from government would allow him to return to parliamentary politics. The central question for Fico is whether Taraba and MPs politically aligned with him will continue to support the government.

The problem comes as Fico is already facing broader political pressure at home. As EU Today reported earlier this year, large demonstrations have challenged his government over its domestic and foreign policy direction, while disagreements within the governing parties have repeatedly complicated parliamentary business.

Tuesday’s vote now brings the internal coalition dispute directly into the National Council.

Majority in question

Slovakia’s parliament has 150 seats, meaning a government normally needs the support of at least 76 MPs to maintain a reliable absolute majority.

That arithmetic explains why Fico attempted to reverse Taraba’s dismissal on Monday. Losing the support of only a small number of deputies could leave the government dependent on negotiations with individual MPs to pass legislation, including the state budget.

The opposition had openly described Tuesday’s vote as a test of the government’s parliamentary numbers. In announcing its attempt to remove Taraba, PS said it wanted the balance of forces inside the National Council to become clear.

Fico himself has previously acknowledged that the government could lose its majority and has raised the possibility of an early parliamentary election if the coalition’s internal disputes cannot be resolved.

The next stage will depend heavily on what Taraba does after leaving government and whether MPs associated with him continue to vote with the coalition.

Dispute over Taraba’s successor

The ministerial succession presents another problem.

The SNS wants Filip Kuffa, currently a state secretary at the Environment Ministry, to replace Taraba. Danko’s party has argued that the Environment Ministry belongs to the SNS under the coalition agreement and has pressed for Kuffa to take control of the department immediately.

Pellegrini has reservations.

In August, the president said that any ministerial change should produce an improvement in the quality of government rather than amount simply to a political replacement. He said there were “more qualified candidates” in Slovakia than Kuffa and indicated that he expected Fico to put forward a candidate capable of reducing tensions surrounding environmental policy.

More recently, Pellegrini indicated that if no acceptable successor were proposed, he could temporarily place the Environment Ministry under Fico himself.

The dispute therefore remains unresolved even after parliament’s removal of Taraba.

Fico must now deal simultaneously with the appointment of a new environment minister, the demands of the SNS and the parliamentary intentions of Taraba and his allies. The outcome will determine whether the three-party coalition retains a workable majority or whether Slovakia moves towards another period of parliamentary instability — and potentially an early election.