EU summit
Orban blocks EU aid to Ukraine
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban prevents an agreement on financial aid for Ukraine at the EU summit. photo
© Virginia Mayo/AP/dpa
Success is followed by defeat. The EU summit cannot decide on new aid to Ukraine. The man who previously made a solution possible on another issue is responsible.
Because of a veto from Hungary, the other heads of state and government were unable to approve a 50 billion euro financial aid package for Ukraine that night as planned. The negotiations must therefore now be continued in January.
EU Council President Charles Michel said: “We will come back to this issue early next year and try to achieve unanimity.” Meanwhile, Orban celebrated his “veto against additional money for Ukraine” and against the EU’s multi-year financial planning on the Internet portal X. He wrote about his “Nem” (Hungarian for no) that they will deal with it again next year “after proper preparations”.
Budget plans are on hold
The summit was actually supposed to decide to budget 17 billion euros in grants and 33 billion euros in loans to support Ukraine over the next four years. It was also planned to adjust other areas of the long-term EU budget from 2021 to 2027. At the request of countries like Italy, there should also be additional money for the competitiveness of industry and migration policy. However, these plans are also initially affected by Hungary’s veto.
Orban had already criticized the EU Commission’s proposals for revising the long-term budget before the summit as “unfounded, unbalanced and unrealistic”. Until the end, however, the other heads of state and government had hoped that they could persuade him to agree with compromise offers.
Procedural trick in the dispute over accession talks
There had previously been an unexpected breakthrough on another issue. Orban surprisingly made it possible to decide on the start of accession negotiations with Ukraine by not taking part in the decisive vote. According to outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Chancellor Olaf Scholz showed him this path. Hungary was able to stick to its no to the accession negotiations without blocking them.
The fact that Orban did not make decisions on financial issues possible could have been because this could cost his country a lot of money. The decision to start EU accession negotiations, however, is only very important symbolically, as Ukraine’s actual accession before 2030 is considered impossible.
There are no initial financial problems
Zelenskyj initially did not comment on Orban’s overnight veto. He had previously described the decision to start EU accession negotiations as a success for Ukraine and all of Europe. “A victory that motivates, inspires and strengthens,” wrote the head of state via the short message service X.
“This step will be followed by the next ones,” he said in a video address from Lviv early this morning. “It is a big task to integrate the state, all institutions, all standards – everything into the European Union. But we will manage it.” Ukraine has repeatedly proven what it is capable of. “The time will come when we can celebrate Ukraine’s accession to the EU.”
According to diplomats, the lack of agreement on new financial aid will not cause problems for Ukraine until the next EU summit in January. Plans are already being worked on as to how support could be organized outside the EU budget. Then Orban could no longer block them.
Agreement on new Russia sanctions
The heads of state can also count the decision on a new package of sanctions against Russia as a further success of the first day of the summit. It envisages introducing a ban on imports of diamonds and tightening the recently barely effective price cap for Russian oil exports to third countries. Trade restrictions and punitive measures against people and organizations that support the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine are also planned for other goods.
In contrast to Great Britain, the EU has not yet imposed a ban on the import of diamonds from Russia. For a long time, the main reason was the resistance of Belgium, where the Flemish port city of Antwerp has been one of the most important diamond centers in the world since the 16th century. Russia is considered the world’s largest producer of rough diamonds. In 2021, the state diamond miner Alrosa had revenues of 332 billion rubles (around 3.41 billion euros).
In addition to the economic punitive measures, according to the EU, sanctions are planned against more than 100 other people and organizations that support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. They would then no longer be able to dispose of assets existing in the EU. The affected people will also no longer be allowed to enter the EU. For example, they are said to come from the Russian military, defense and IT sectors.