Negotiations with Hungary to get it to lift its veto on the reform of the EU budget that allows 50,000 million euros to be allocated to Ukraine are continuing, but the Twenty-seven are “far from” the agreement, diplomatic sources reported yesterday European Budapest is not moving and the tension rises for moments in Brussels as the extraordinary summit called for tomorrow to resolve the situation approaches. The outcome of the meeting is decisive for Kyiv, which estimates that, as of now, it only has the funds to run its administration until March.
The Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, opposes the European strategy to support Ukraine in the wake of the Russian invasion and presents his country’s position on the funds as “a matter 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 on us and now blackmail us”, he says in an interview with the newspaper Le Point published yesterday.
“We don’t leave a nursery school. If the Financial Times publishes a document like this”, then “it certainly exists”, says the Hungarian ultra-nationalist leader, referring to an internal note drawn up by the services of the European Council that reviews possible avenues of economic pressure against Budapest, should it veto the agreement Although it is not a “plan”, European diplomatic sources emphasize, and that it is not clear that the other states will agree to take actions to boycott the Hungarian economy, the mere fact that it has been drafted and leaked reveals the great frustration of the EU with Orbán. This move, however, has gone down badly with some national delegations, who fear it will only serve to complicate the negotiation.
According to the reports of the European Commission, Hungary is the country that violates the values ??and principles of the EU most seriously, a situation that has caused the institution to keep more than 20 billion euros frozen as a result of its multiple violations of the rule of law. Orbán claims, on the other hand, that decisions on access to funds are part of an “ideological war” against some governments and that diplomatic pressure to force him to change his attitude on aid to Ukraine has only strengthened his anti-European rhetoric.
“It cannot be said that there was any blackmail. Everyone has 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, remember, is subject to rules, and in some cases, conditionality rules apply. In fact, the latest judicial reforms approved by Budapest allowed the Commission to hand over 10,000 million euros in cohesion funds that had been frozen.
Right now, Hungary remains adamant in its refusal to allocate 50 billion euros in aid and loans to Kyiv in order to guarantee enough funds to finance itself over the next four years. For now, it only agrees to cut the funding 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, as the enlargement of the Community budget is a legal act that should not be adopted with the constructive abstention of a country.
While there are alternative formulas for getting financial aid to Ukraine, they would all be more complicated and expensive (several states would have to ask their respective parliaments for permission), and the goal remains to reach an agreement with the support of all 27 member states . But whatever happens, the Union, stress several European sources, “will be on par” with Kyiv. “One way or another, we will find a solution, with Orbán or without, to support Ukraine, but it would be preferable if European unity were preserved, we would all feel better that way,” declared the Prime Minister of Poland yesterday, Donald Tusk.
