Negotiations with Hungary to get it to lift its veto on the reform of the community budget that would allow 50 billion euros to be allocated to Ukraine continue, but the Twenty-Seven are “far away” from the agreement, European diplomatic sources reported yesterday. Budapest is not moving and tension is increasing by the minute in Brussels as the extraordinary summit called for tomorrow to resolve the situation approaches. The outcome of the meeting is crucial for Kyiv, which estimates that, currently, it only has funds to run its Administration until March.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán opposes the European strategy of supporting Ukraine against the Russian invasion and presents his country's position on the funds as “a question of national sovereignty.” “We do not agree with this modification of the budget, but the other countries do not accept it. First they tried to convince us, then put pressure and now blackmail us,” he says in an interview with the newspaper Le Point published yesterday.
“We didn't come out of a daycare. If the Financial Times publishes a document like this," then "it surely exists," says the Hungarian ultranationalist leader, alluding to an internal note prepared by the services of the European Council that reviews possible means of economic pressure against Budapest in the event that it vetoes the agreement. Although it is not a “plan”, European diplomatic sources emphasize, and it is not clear that the other countries would agree to make gestures of boycotting the Hungarian economy, the mere fact that it has been drafted and leaked reveals the high level of frustration. of the EU with Orbán. This move, however, has gone down badly with some national delegations, who fear that it will only serve to complicate the negotiation.
According to reports from the European Commission, Hungary is the country that most seriously violates the values and principles of the EU, a situation that has led the institution to keep more than 20 billion euros frozen as a result of its multiple violations of the Rule of law. Orbán maintains instead that decisions on access to funds are part of an “ideological war” against certain governments and diplomatic pressure to force him to change his position on aid to Ukraine has only reinforced his anti-European rhetoric.
“It cannot be said that there has been any blackmail. We have all been working like crazy for weeks to reach an agreement with the 27 countries. "That note is nothing more than an anecdote," protests a European diplomat, who emphasizes that the funds "are neither blocked nor unblocked for political reasons." Its management, he recalls, is subject to rules, and in some cases conditionality rules are applied. In fact, the latest judicial reforms approved by Budapest allowed the Commission to deliver 10 billion euros in cohesion funds that were frozen in December.
Today, Hungary remains stuck in its refusal to allocate 50 billion euros in aid and loans to Kyiv to guarantee it sufficient funds to finance itself for the next four years. For the moment, it only agrees to break up the financing and review it annually, a formula that the other 26 countries reject because it would give it new opportunities to exercise its veto. The talks have entered a “difficult” phase, they admit in Brussels. This time, the imaginative formula used in December to prevent the Hungarian veto from blocking the decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, asking Orbán to leave the room for a few minutes, does not work since the expansion of the community budget is a legal act that cannot be adopted with the constructive abstention of a country.
Although there are alternative formulas to provide financial aid to Ukraine, they would all be more complicated and expensive (several countries would have to ask permission from their respective parliaments), and the goal remains to achieve an agreement with the support of all 27 member states. But whatever happens, the Union, different European sources emphasize, “will be on par” with Kyiv. “One way or another, we will find a solution, with or without Orbán to support Ukraine, but it would be preferable if European unity were preserved, we would all feel better that way,” declared Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk yesterday.
