Orbán blocks EU aid for Ukraine after membership talks agreed

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday (15 December) blocked €50 billion in EU aid for Ukraine, after leaders side-stepped his opposition to agree to open talks with Kyiv on joining the bloc.

A crunch summit in Brussels broke up after a day of wrangling as the Hungarian authoritarian leader refused to greenlight funding to help prop up Ukraine’s government over the next four years.

“Summary of the nightshift: veto for the extra money to Ukraine,” Orbán wrote on social media.

He said he also vetoed injecting new money in the seven-year EU budget, which has dried up largely because of the Covid crisis and the war in Ukraine.

EU leaders ended talks on the financial package, which requires unanimity of the 27 EU leaders, in the early hours of Friday morning and said they would try again in January, with some voicing optimism a deal could be clinched then.

Officials said leaders of 26 of the EU’s 27 member countries were satisfied with a compromise budget proposal put forward by summit chairman Charles Michel.

“We still have some time, Ukraine is not out of money in the next few weeks,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters on leaving the talks. “I am fairly confident we can get a deal early next year, we are thinking of late January,” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said.

The blockage from the Hungarian nationalist — Russia’s best friend in the EU — dealt a blow to Kyiv and its backers only hours after they had celebrated the bloc taking the symbolic step of agreeing to open membership talks.

Kyiv is urgently trying to change the narrative that backing from its Western allies is waning as doubts swirl over support from the United States.

Orbán had also opposed starting talks but agreed to step out of the negotiating room to allow the other EU leaders to take a consensus decision without him.

In a video posted to social media, the veteran leader denounced “a completely senseless, irrational and wrong decision” but complained that “26 other countries have insisted this decision be taken”.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz played a key role in getting Orban to leave the room to clear the way for a decision, diplomats and officials said. Scholz said the decision was “a strong sign of support” for Ukraine.

“Historic day! Against all odds, we achieved a decision,” wrote Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who did not attend the knife-edge summit, called the decision “a victory that motivates, inspires, and strengthens”.

And Moldova’s President Maia Sandu said her country had turned “a new page today with the EU’s go-ahead for accession talks. Moldova is ready to rise to the challenge”.

The White House — which faces opposition from US Republicans to support for Ukraine — hailed a “historic decision”.

The agreement to open membership negotiations with Kyiv does not mean that Ukraine will be joining the EU anytime soon.

Before the talks can be launched, EU states must agree on a negotiating framework — giving Orbán ample opportunity to stall the process again.

Cash for Orbán

Most EU leaders wanted this week’s summit to send a sign of solidarity with Ukraine 22 months after Russia launched an all-out invasion.

But any decisions must be unanimous — or at least unopposed — and Orbán initially insisted a decision on funding could wait until after June’s European elections.

Critics have accused the Hungarian leader of holding Kyiv’s survival hostage in a bid to force Brussels to release billions of euros of EU funds frozen over a rule of law dispute.

In what some saw as a last-minute concession, the European Commission, the EU’s executive, agreed on Wednesday to unblock €10 billion of that cash.

Another 21 billion euros still remain out of Orbán’s grasp, but he denied that Hungary was making a link between the cash and its Ukraine stance.

That’s not our style,” he said.

No ‘victory’ for Putin

Zelenskyy, in an impassioned plea via video link, earlier told the leaders “now is not the time for half-measures or hesitation”.

He said failure to open membership talks with Ukraine would be used by Putin “against you personally, and against all of Europe.

“Don’t give him this first — and only — victory of the year,” he urged.

Beyond Orbán, other EU leaders stressed the need for unity and to send a strong signal of support for Ukraine, which has already seen Washington’s support threatened by manoeuvres in the US Congress.

The leaders said the bloc had agreed to a 12th round of sanctions on Moscow, targeting Russia’s lucrative diamond exports and aiming to tighten an oil price cap.

But the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine does not look promising for Kyiv after a summer counter-offensive failed. Putin boasted on Thursday that he has 617,000 troops in Ukraine, and that their positions are improving.

Across Brussels, at NATO HQ, alliance secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg warned that the West must continue supporting Ukraine in order to protect the rest of Europe.

“If Putin wins in Ukraine, there is real risk that his aggression will not end there. Our support is not charity — it is an investment in our security,”
he said.

(Edited by Georgi Gotev)

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