Slovakia's governing coalition has failed to strike a deal to prevent the collapse of a continent-wide plan to rescue heavily indebted European nations.

Prime Minister Iveta Radicova said her four-party coalition, which met for three hours, was unable to agree on a compromise deal.

Miroslav Beblavy, an MP in Radicova's SDKU-DS centre-right party, told the Guardian that the vote on expanding the powers of the eurozone bailout fund was by no means certain to pass in the Slovakian parliament in Bratislava on Tuesday.

Asked whether the bill would be voted through, Beblavy said: "That's the million-dollar question at the moment." Earlier in the day Radicova had not only failed to persuade all four parties in the governing coalition to support the measures but had also not struck a deal with the opposition SMER social democratic party to vote with the government.

SMER's leader, Robert Fico, a former Slovakian prime minister, continued to insist his party would support the government only if fresh elections were called immediately following the vote.

Fico's support may be crucial if a junior member of the four-party governing coalition, the Freedom and Solidarity party (SaS), sticks to its plans to oppose the vote. The party's chairman, Richard Sulik has called the expanded bailout fund "a road to hell" and vowed again on Monday to block it.

"I think it's quite possible that there will be some major government breakdown and there's no certainty how that could influence the vote," Beblavy said.

"No one knows what will happen but if I was to bet, I would say that it is more likely the EFSF (European financial stability facility) will be voted through and the government will collapse than the other way around."

Referring to the three hours of failed coalition talks held on Monday afternoon, Beblavy said: "There was no meeting of minds or even getting close to an agreement. There was no change."

He said there was despondency in his party at the situation. "I think there's a lot of sadness that it could be possible that a good government might not be able to carry out its mandate due to something like this, something so important," he said. "I think some of the political leaders here do not realise that Slovakia is a fully fledged player in Europe. They behave like what economists called 'prize takers' – they don't feel that they can ever influence things [on a European level] so they focus on domestic concerns."

The Slovakian parliament is due to begin debating the bill to expand the powers of the EFSF at 1pm CET on Tuesday. A vote is expected by the end of the day.