The blocking strategy deployed by the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orbán, since December to prevent the European Union from approving 50 billion euros in aid for Ukraine collapsed yesterday in a few hours in the face of the solid wall of unity built by the other 26 countries of the club against his threat of a veto. In a matter of minutes, the game ended with a checkmate for the Hungarian leader, who in exchange for his vote obtained minimal concessions that will allow him to sell the result in Hungary as a victory.
Despite the dark omens that preceded the emergency summit called to approve the reform of the community budget, blocked by Orbán in December, just a few minutes after the start of the meeting the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, announced that the Twenty-seven They had reached an agreement “unanimously” to authorize the funds to Kyiv, vital support to avoid liquidity problems and ensure the functioning of the public administration for four years.
Although it is not the first time that the Hungarian leader has kept the EU in suspense for weeks and, when the time comes, he gives in, this time the fight had taken on greater dimensions. Faced with the possibility that he would veto a decision that the rest of the leaders consider “existential” not only for Ukraine, but for the EU itself, this time they chose to suggest the use of unprecedented measures of political and economic pressure against Budapest. It worked. The outcome of yesterday’s meeting only highlights the loneliness of the Hungarian leader, already seen in December, when he agreed to leave the room for a few minutes so that the other 26 leaders could approve the start of accession talks with Ukraine without him.
The tactic could not be repeated with the budget negotiations, but the EU did not leave him much room for negotiation, as Orbán confirmed yesterday in Brussels. He arrived in the community capital the day before, but did not sleep well. The same farmers whom he had hailed the night before as “the voice of the people” did not let him sleep a wink over the honking of their tractors during the night, as he told Michel when he called him first thing in the morning to prepare the day. It’s a Belgian negotiating tactic to weaken you, the president of the European Council joked, to which the Hungarian responded with more jokes.
Already in the European Council building, before the start of the summit with all the leaders, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, were waiting for him, in addition to Michel himself and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The faces of the European leaders did not invite optimism; diplomats from all the delegations and institutions had been talking for days about the high level of “fatigue” and “frustration” that existed towards Hungary. In fact, the leaders had talked about it all the day before, on the phone and in informal conversations at a dinner that Orbán skipped. He wasn’t at the table and ended up on the menu, as he would check on at breakfast time.
Previous contacts between the leaders had served to “consolidate” the position that the agreement was only possible if all 27 countries supported it, not just 26 and outside the community budget, as they considered doing in the event of a blockade. “Until the last minute, the same message was passed through different channels,” explains a senior European official. “Everything was very prepared, we showed him the carrot and the stick.”
The Hungarian leader quickly accepted the agreement presented by Michel, Scholz, Macron and Meloni. Before ringing the bell, the President of the Council called the leaders of the Baltic countries into the room, on the one hand, and then the leaders of Spain, the Netherlands and Poland to see the text. Moments later, the summit began and in just a few minutes Michel, because he presented the agreement and no leader spoke, announced the approval of aid to Ukraine.
Two amendments to the draft conclusions allowed Orbán to lift his veto. The first provides that the European Council annually evaluates the use of aid to Kyiv, but without the possibility of voting (and vetoing) its renewal each year, as Budapest demanded; It is also expected that in two years’ time, when the EU negotiates its next budget, the Commission may be asked to review financial assistance to Ukraine.
In addition, the leaders agreed to include one more phrase in the summit conclusions that evokes the commitment reached in December 2020 that the conditionality mechanisms for access to community aid be applied in an objective, impartial and proportional manner. The Hungarian Government hopes that this will help it unlock part of the 22 billion euros that the Commission, in application of different rules, keeps frozen due to its violations of the rule of law.
Asked about this, Von der Leyen assured that Orbán has obtained “nothing” in this regard and defended that his decisions, sometimes criticized by the European Parliament, such as when in December he authorized the payment of 10 billion to Budapest, are based on legislation. in force: “if it meets the conditions, there are disbursements; if not, no.” Except for Orbán himself, all members of the European Council agreed that they had not made any gift or transfer to Budapest.
“There are agreements that sometimes require a maturation period, and this is a clear case. Between December and now we have left zero room to break the unity of the 26 countries and we have made it clear that the agreement that was on the table since then was the only one achievable,” summarized the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander De Croo, at the end of the summit.
