The leaders of the European Union reached an agreement this Thursday to deliver 50 billion euros in aid to Ukraine for the next four years after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has withdrawn his veto.
“We have an agreement. Unity. This guarantees a stable, predictable and long-term financing for Ukraine. The EU takes leadership and responsibility in supporting Ukraine; We know what is at stake,” says the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
Michel’s message arrived just a few minutes after the start of a summit of heads of state and government that was preceded by a meeting of the president of the European Council, the French Emmanuel Macron, the German Olaf Scholz and the Italian Giorgia Meloni with Orbán to find a solution to the blockade.
The president of the Spanish Government later joined the meeting, Pedro Sánchez, and the highest leaders of Belgium, Alexander De Croo, Netherlands, Mark Rutte, and Poland, Donald Tusk.
Orbán will not be able to veto aid to kyiv
The Hungarian ultranationalist called for a mechanism to evaluate aid to Ukraine each yeardespite it being a plan until 2027, and having the possibility of a veto in each analysis, something that the rest of the partners, who win the battle, flatly rejected.
The pact with Orbán includes that to carry out this review or make any change in aid, the approval of all member states will be required, thus Hungary will not be able to block the aid package to kyiv again.
In addition, the rest of the leaders have agreed to include a paragraph in the conclusions document that reminds that measures to block funds for attacks on the rule of law (a mechanism that currently keeps 6.3 billion in Budapest blocked) must be “proportionate to the repercussion that have the violation”.
The agreed revision of the financial framework includes, in addition to aid to Ukraine, An additional 14.6 billion euros to reinforce immigration and neighborhood items (9,600 million), the Solidarity and Emergency Reserve (1,500 million), the Flexibility Instrument (2,000 million) and for strategic investments (1,500 million), as well as a mechanism in phases to pay the interest on the debt of the recovery fund .
Orbán, Putin’s ally
This assistance package for kyiv should have already been approved at the December summit, but Orbán he vetoed it alone. This blockade is what has forced the call of the Extraordinary meeting of European leaders that was held this Thursday. Since the beginning of January, contacts at all levels between Brussels and Budapest have multiplied to try to resolve Orbán’s problems.
Orbán is now the reference of the European forces of the radical right and the only ally he has left in the EU. Vladimir Putin, with whom he met in Beijing last October. The anger with him is so great among the rest of the European leaders that in recent days a series of protests have taken place in Brussels. dirty war maneuvers against Hungary never seen before.
To begin with, the European Council has leaked to the newspaper Financial Timesthe Brussels Bible, a secret plan to sink the Hungarian economy, undermine investor confidence and endanger its currency if Orbán persists in his veto of kyiv. In fact, The rate of the Hungarian forint fell on Monday after publication of the article. In parallel, there are rumors about a reactivation of the sanctioning procedure of Article 7 due to systemic risks to the rule of law, which would ultimately mean suspend Budapest’s voting rights in the EU.
All these threats have not made an impact on Orbán… until today and after maintaining his defiant attitude for months. In December he hinted that he would only give the green light to aid to Ukraine if Brussels releases all the cohesion and Next Generation funds awarded to Hungary, which are frozen by the authoritarian drift of the Government in Budapest. Ursula von der Leyen’s Commission already unlocked a first tranche of 10.2 billion last Wednesday, just before the start of the European Council. But the Hungarian prime minister was not satisfied and wanted the remaining 21 billion, something that has not yet been revealed if it has been achieved.
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