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EU leaders clashed over the bloc’s ongoing support to Ukraine at a charged summit on Thursday, with the Hungarian prime minister refusing to endorse a political and financial assistance package for Kyiv.
Viktor Orbán made good on his threats to block a proposal for Ukraine to start EU accession talks and receive €50bn from the bloc’s shared budget, exposing the bloc’s fractured stance towards Kyiv after almost 22 months of Russia’s war.
The EU’s ability to continue supporting Ukraine has become critical given the US Congress’s failure to agree on a $60bn package for Kyiv proposed by the White House.
The stand-off between Hungary and the bloc’s other 26 states over support to Kyiv dominated talks between the leaders, people briefed on the discussions said, alongside a broader disagreement over how much the EU’s shared budget should be increased.
A sizeable bloc of richer members, led by the Netherlands and Sweden, have said they will agree to increase the budget only in order to help Ukraine, while others — such as Italy and Greece — want capitals to contribute a larger amount of fresh cash to spend on managing migration and other priorities.
“The discussions are tough, but constructive,” said an EU diplomat briefed on the debate, adding that Orbán had stuck to his hardline position on Ukraine, saying that there was no need for more financial aid before next summer.
Orbán has previously delayed the adoption of EU sanctions against Moscow and secured carve-outs for his country’s fossil fuel imports from Russia. On Thursday, he dismissed the conclusions of a European Commission report recommending leaders to open accession negotiations with Ukraine, and refused to approve funding for Kyiv from the bloc’s common budget.
“There is no reason to discuss anything [on accession talks] because the preconditions are not met,” Orban told reporters as he arrived at the summit. On financial aid, he said: “In the long term, and the bigger sum of money, my decision is we should give it outside [the budget].”
EU officials have started technical discussions on an alternative solution, outside the common budget, but have publicly stressed that their sole objective is to convince Orbán to drop his veto. An off-budget instrument would last only one year, be more expensive and take longer to set up, officials say.
“I’m ready to negotiate. I have packed many shirts [if] it takes us long,” said Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, which was originally scheduled to last two days. Supporting Ukraine was about “our security and our existence as a credible union. We need strong resistance here. We have to show our unity,” he added.
In a video address to EU leaders inside the room, Zelenskyy said that the bloc had given Ukraine a “clear schedule” for accession and that delaying the decision would be a “victory” for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Last year, Ukraine received clear recommendations on how to move forward. We have passed the key laws . . . Today is a day for a political decision in response to what we’ve accomplished,” he said.
Putin on Thursday vowed to continue his invasion of Ukraine until his “goals are achieved” and expressed confidence that the west’s support for Kyiv would falter.
“Ukraine produces almost nothing today, everything is coming from the west, but the free stuff is going to run out some day, and it seems it already is,” Putin said.
Orbán was the only EU leader to meet Putin this year. But in addition to his overtures towards the Russian president, Hungary’s PM is using leverage over Ukraine to secure more funding for his country from Brussels.
On Wednesday, the European Commission unblocked €10bn or about a third of the funding for Hungary that had been frozen due to rule of law issues — and one of Orbán’s officials this week suggested that was insufficient for the PM to drop his veto.
“I always have some difficulty with such a [summit] where one person thinks we can offer all kinds of things,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
Aside from the Ukraine and budget discussions, the EU’s leaders are braced for negotiations over whether to start membership talks with Moldova and Bosnia and grant candidate status to Georgia, as well as a joint stance on the Israel-Hamas conflict.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he would push for stronger language calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and backing a two-state solution. “I think the European Union has lost credibility because of our inability to take a stronger and more united position on Israel and Palestine,” he added.
Additional reporting by Andy Bounds in Brussels and Max Seddon in London
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