Author: Lucie Sýkorová, HlidaciPes.org
The last time Slovakia was threatened with a freeze on European subsidies was last autumn. Information brought back from the country a month ago by two groups of MEPs indicates that the situation is still alarming. It is not just about the misuse of European funds, but also about suspicions of widespread corruption and a threat to the rule of law.
Fico’s government has faced criticism from EU institutions since last year, mainly due to restrictions on media freedom, the merger of public television and radio, and the reform of the judiciary, including the abolition of the Special Prosecutor’s Office (ÚSP) and the National Criminal Agency (NAKA).
In May and June, two missions of MEPs went to Slovakia to map the current situation.
The European Parliament has received dozens of complaints that indicate that European subsidies are being systematically stolen in Slovakia. In Slovakia, more than 80% of public investments are financed by the European Union.
“We received suggestions from judges, police officers, and employees of the Agricultural Payment Agency (PPA, Pôdohospodárska platobná agentúra), both current and former. In the end, the suggestions that came from the employees of the largest audit firms were decisive,” Czech MEP Tomáš Zdechovský told HlídacíPes.org.
As a member of the European Parliament’s Committee on Budgetary Control (CONT), he led the first mission, which took place at the end of May. The mission report was officially published on July 10.
“The subsidy control system changed with the advent of the current government and is now not transparent and not well secured. Practices that we know from the 1990s are appearing there,” said Zdechovský.
As after the murder of Kuciak
Some findings will probably lead to criminal prosecution, but even those that indicate irregularities and lack of control may lead to the suspension of EU subsidies for Slovakia. The European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and the European Commission’s auditors already have the evidence.
According to the report, corruption linked to the subsidy system is a major problem. “I met with farmers or entrepreneurs in the construction industry who described how they had to pay back a certain percentage of the subsidy they received. We have specific names of people who filed criminal charges that were never investigated,” Zdechovský notes.
The money is allegedly being used unsystematically; an example is a camera system in the forest, where cameras cost six times more than the normal price in the Czech Republic. “Several times more was also paid for climbing frames for children’s playgrounds, for example. Meanwhile, half of the municipalities in Slovakia still do not even have sewage systems,” adds the EU representative.
According to him, the system that was set up under the previous governments of Robert Fico is now continuing in Slovakia.
“When we were in Slovakia after the murder of Jan Kuciak in 2018, there was a system of so-called sleeping judges. Cases that were not supposed to be sentenced were deliberately given to judges of pre-retirement age and those who were terminally ill. Under President Čaputová, this system began to change, but unfortunately, due to the chaos and unpreparedness of the previous government, the changes were not completed. And now what was set then continues.”
In addition to the use of European subsidies, the European Parliament mission also focused on the state of the rule of law and the impacts of the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (ÚSP), which ceased to exist in March 2024.
Daniel Lipšic, former head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office, also spoke to the mission. “The loss of expertise and the outflow of investigators that occurred simultaneously with the dissolution of the Special Prosecutor’s Office and the NAKA have led to a minimal level of investigation of serious economic crime in Slovakia, given that the police no longer function properly and district offices lack the necessary expertise,” he told MEPs, according to a report.
Lipšic further stated that in his opinion, the abolition of the Special Prosecutor’s Office (SPO) has led to a deterioration in the protection of the Union’s financial interests. “He pointed to alarming preliminary statistics, according to which in the first months of 2025 there were reportedly only two indictments for crimes similar to those previously investigated by the SPO, which usually amounted to 120 to 150 indictments per year.”
Insufficient protection against fraud
The mission also spoke to Jozef Kandera, the Deputy Prosecutor General, whose office took over most of the tasks of the abolished Special Prosecutor’s Office.
He reportedly “failed to provide convincing arguments that would alleviate concerns about the loss of specialization after the abolition of the Office of the Special Prosecutor.” Among other things, he “was unable to provide statistics that would refute the very low number of indictments in the first months of 2025.”
Civil society representatives and investigative journalists told MEPs that they are working in a hostile environment with numerous public attacks from representatives of the ruling parties, lack of access to public information, administrative obstacles and various forms of pressure.
Government representatives and many MEPs refuse to communicate with some journalists, which threatens to undermine public trust in the media, the report says.
The delegation also described concerns regarding the functioning of the Agricultural Paying Agency (PPA), which has been covered by the media in recent years in connection with cases of financing private pensions.
Information provided by the Supreme Audit Office was supposed to confirm that the agency does not have sufficient capacity to control the implementation of agricultural funds in Slovakia and that serious shortcomings have been identified in the protection of the EU budget against fraud.
Slovak government in Orbán’s footsteps
Shortly after the mission led by Tomáš Zdechovský, another group of MEPs, specifically members of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), traveled to Slovakia.
They spent two days in Slovakia and focused primarily on the state of the rule of law. Belgian MEP Sophie Wilmès from the Renew Europe faction then expressed concerns about developments in Slovakia, which she said was on a similar path to Hungary. “It looks like the Slovak government is following in Orbán’s footsteps,” she wrote on Twitter in June.
According to HlídacíPes.org, the report from the LIBE committee mission will be available in the fall.
A coalition of international organizations dealing with press freedom also headed to Slovakia with a monitoring mission at the end of November 2024. The mission was led by the International Press Institute (IPI) and was joined by ARTICLE 19 Europe, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECPMF).
The mission’s findings confirmed that media freedom in Slovakia is under threat: “The current government is weakening legal protections for media freedom and is fuelling an increasingly hostile environment for journalists.”
The mission also warned against steps that would directly contradict new European legislation, namely the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) and the Anti-SLAPP Directive. Violations of these legislative provisions could also lead to the suspension of EU funding for Slovakia.
