2024-02-05 13:20:58
MONDE – Faced with immense pressure and thinly veiled threats, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is giving up and lifting his veto on European aid of 50 billion euros for Ukraine, after weeks of negotiations. If European leaders like Ursula von der Leyen and Emmanuel Macron welcome the outcome of the negotiations, Viktor Orbán justifies his decision by the fact that the 26 other EU member states were considering, despite this veto, sending their aid to Kiev while depriving Budapest of its budgetary aid, blocked by Brussels.
The Hungarian Prime Minister opposed EU funding for Ukraine last December, shortly after opposing the opening of Kiev’s accession negotiations to the European community. “Veto of additional funds to Ukraine, veto of the revision of the European multiannual budget, we will return to the issue next year after appropriate preparations,” he announced.
The EU blackmails Hungary
The 26 other members then decided to resume discussions at a summit “at the beginning of the year” 2024, a decision taken in the absence of Viktor Orbán. The latter explained his position by his country’s desire not to “share the responsibility” for this financing, deemed “insane”.
The main one of these conditions is the release of all European funds for his country. “I have always said that if there was an amendment to the EU budget, Hungary would take the opportunity to clearly demand what it deserves. Not half, not a quarter, but the whole thing,” he insisted. These funds amount to 30 billion euros which Brussels is blocking due to its doubts about the non-respect of the rule of law in Hungary.
Faced with Viktor Orbán’s intransigence, the EU considered taking measures against the Hungarian economy. It’s the Financial Times who revealed this information at the end of January, suggesting that the European Union was even considering “jeopardizing” the Hungarian currency and causing a “collapse of investor confidence” in response to opposition from Budapest, with the capital then believing that “the European Union is not at all a democratic community”.
The Hungarian Prime Minister’s bet was to hold out until the European elections, scheduled for next June, by banking on a breakthrough by parties hostile to the EU. Especially since the opening in December of negotiations on Ukraine, its membership in the community as well as the granting of financial aid, allowed the lifting of the freezing of 10 of the 30 billion to which Budapest estimates it is entitled.
European leaders then threatened to withhold the remaining 20 billion. But Viktor Orbán would not give in. Thursday February 1, the Hungarian Prime Minister met Emmanuel Macron, the head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni, as well as the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
Orban’s lost bet
An agreement among twenty-seven was finally reached on Thursday morning. The compromise provides for the drafting of an annual report on the use of funds in favor of kyiv and the possibility for leaders to ask the Commission for a “review” in two years. Orbán demanded an annual review of the use of this aid, but European leaders above all wanted to give predictability to kyiv.
“This agreement guarantees stable, predictable and long-term financing for Ukraine,” said Charles Michel, President of the European Council. Emmanuel Macron reacted by affirming that “Russia cannot count on any fatigue from Europeans in their support for Ukraine”. Hungary “didn’t get a gift,” he added. Ursula von der Leyen welcomed a “good day for Europe”.
This aid, made up of 33 billion euros in loans and 17 billion in donations, is thus included in an extension of the EU budget for 2024-2027. For European leaders, it is also a “signal” to the United States, whose aid to Ukraine is blocked by Congress.
Viktor Orbán thus found himself back against the wall. “If this agreement had not been reached and Hungary had continued to use its veto, the 26 EU member states would still have channeled money to Ukraine, which I could not stop, and they would have taken the funds intended for Hungary and sent them also to Ukraine,” he explained. European ambassadors had actually worked on an intergovernmental mechanism of 26, to maintain their support for kyiv.
“The West continues to believe that time is on its side, on our side. But it’s the opposite: time is on the Russians’ side. The longer the war lasts, the more deaths there will be and the balance of power will not shift in favor of Ukraine,” he laments.
EU member states are also planning a new round of sanctions against Moscow, on the second anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine. This will be the thirteenth package! It will essentially include measures aimed at combating the circumvention of previous sanctions.
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