Hungarian Prime Minister Orban will be a key figure at the EU summit. The decision to start accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova was made without him. In return, he vetoed further aid to Ukraine.
You can’t have everything, that’s the conclusion of this long summit night. While there was a breakthrough in the accession negotiations, the budget talks failed.
As was heard from participants, Hungarian Prime Minister Orban remained tough on this issue, and it will now be postponed until January. The other heads of government wanted to make 50 billion euros available to Ukraine for the next few years – partly as a loan, partly as fresh money.
Money for everyday life in war
Germany would receive around one billion euros per year. This meant that Ukraine was supposed to create everyday life, pay pensions and run schools, even during the war. And also organize the accession negotiations to the EU. Military aid is not included. The money should be placed in the EU budget.
Orban had already said at the beginning of the summit that he did not want to increase the budget for this. “If you want to give Ukraine more money, you have to find it outside the budget, then we support it.”
The heads of state and government were still negotiating, discussing and calculating until half past two in the night. With the “yes” to accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, a major chunk was removed. The second is still a burden on the community – money.
The Hungarian head of government no longer wanted to play along with more money for Ukraine. But this also requires unanimity; you can’t send him out of the room every time.
A brutal climb begins
It is said to have been the German Chancellor who had the idea of holding the vote on accession negotiations when Orban was not in the room. A trick that will go down in the history books, but is not a permanent solution. And so, after the magic of the moment, the hard work now begins. It is not a walk that the EU and Ukraine will take together. It will be a brutal climb.
Ukraine carries one backpack. A country at war, still prone to corruption and characterized by oligarchic structures. Ukraine has achieved a lot, but has not yet met all the conditions that would actually be necessary for accession negotiations. Just like you wave a student through high school even though their performance isn’t quite right – in the hope of offering them a future.
And so many in Brussels emphasize that the decision is also a signal. Not just to Moscow, as Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar emphasizes: “When we say we’ll stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes, that’s what we mean.” But he also set the framework for how long such negotiations could take: “It will take time. On average, it takes 10 years from negotiations to accession.”
Ten years, that’s a long time. What if the right-wing populist Geert Wilders from the Netherlands sits at the round table at some point during these years? Or Marie Le Pen from France?
Time is running out
On this summit the cloak of history fluttered past and you had to grab it. There are European elections next year. That means new commissioners and new balance of power. So time is running out. Because the EU also carries a heavy backpack on its back on the way to enlargement, perhaps even a larger one.
Because the EU has to change: the European house is not built for the new extended family from Ukraine. How will the money be distributed in the future, how many commissioners are there? And the big question again and again is how do you get away from unanimity, which can only be abolished unanimously?
A historic decision
And yes, there are still a few stains on the white tablecloth of the party: the suspicion that Viktor Orban was paid 10 billion euros for his silence and that it is bizarre that he of all people is now accusing Ukraine of not having enough to fight against them Corruption done.
Or the fact that Ukraine now has many new friends, but it has not gained a single meter in the war against Putin as long as these friends do not also supply sufficient weapons.
But despite all the difficulties that await the community in the new year – that evening in Brussels the joy of having reached a historic decision prevailed.
And that was exactly on the day that Russian President Putin held his “annual press conference.”