In the end, the Hungarian Prime Minister Orban gave in: the EU states agreed on a large financing package for Ukraine. That was a lot of hard work and classic summit diplomacy.
It took hours to persuade Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to give up his blockade of support for Ukraine. Even before the actual EU summit began, there were smaller rounds of talks. Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni negotiated with Orban.
More were added later. So the pressure became greater and greater. Finally, an agreement was reached in which all 27 EU states were able to agree to the 50 billion euro financing package for Ukraine.
Chancellor Scholz called this “a good message” for the citizens of Ukraine, but also for the European Union, which has shown “that it can stand together.” It was important to him to make it clear that it was a decision of all 27 member states.
Agreement questionable until the end
The decision of the 27 states was in jeopardy until the very end. Without an agreement with Orban, the other 26 EU countries would have had to agree on complex bilateral solutions with Ukraine, in which some of the payments would have had to be approved by national parliaments.
Orban could not get away with renegotiating aid to Ukraine every year. Instead, it should be possible for the EU Commission to adjust the aid after two years.
On X (formerly Twitter) Orban celebrated the control measures negotiated as “mission accomplished”. But he failed to mention that he cannot veto the package as such.
Scholz demands consistency
Future military aid for Ukraine was also discussed. Scholz initiated a debate about this at the summit. Observers saw criticism of the other large EU states such as France, Italy and Spain, which have clearly lagged behind German military support for Ukraine.
Scholz wanted to refute this impression. He wasn’t interested in “publicly criticizing and showing off anyone, any individual country or even many countries.” Rather, he wanted to say: “People, wait a minute, what is happening on its own is not okay. We are not doing enough as a European Union.”
In any case, no decisions were made about this.
Farmers speak out
Hundreds of farmers blocked the streets with their tractors around the conference building in Brussels’ European Quarter. There were isolated clashes in which objects were thrown and tear gas was used. The protest is directed, among other things, against European environmental regulations.
EU Council President Charles Michel noted that farmers were protesting “full of anger, dissatisfaction, fear for their future.” The heads of state and government therefore took the opportunity to show how much they view agricultural policy “as an important pillar of the European project,” Michel continued.
In the run-up to the summit, the EU Commission suspended some of the environmental regulations until the end of the year. This means that farmers do not have to leave four percent of their arable land fallow this year, as planned, so that nature can recover there. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo sought talks with European farmers after the summit to discuss the consequences of the protests.
Belgium’s prime minister welcomed the Commission’s latest relief measures. However, his Council Presidency is still in favor of further measures. At the end of February, the EU agriculture ministers are due to discuss reducing bureaucracy for farmers.
The planned Mercosur agreement with four Latin American countries still needs to be worked on. French President Macron has been putting pressure on the EU Commission for days not to move forward with the agreement in its current form. French farmers fear competitive disadvantages compared to importers from contracting partner countries because they have to meet less stringent environmental regulations.
Paul Vorreiter, ARD Brussels, tagesschau, February 1st, 2024 6:00 p.m