The Brief – Why this summit’s ransom politics is different

11 months ago 32

It will be the million-euro-question when EU leaders gather in Brussels on Thursday for the toughest summit of the year: What is it that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán really, really wants?

It is possibly the toughest week of the year, and the stakes are exceptionally high.

From Thursday onwards, EU leaders are expected to agree on predictable long-term support for Ukraine, with a €50 billion macroeconomic package and the political decision to open accession talks with Kyiv, a promise that should eventually lead to full membership.

With Russia’s war entering its second year and missile strikes on Ukrainian targets intensifying, Kyiv desperately needs a strong political message and practical support ahead of what could well be a bleak winter.

Hungary, however, has threatened to veto both measures, which could deal another blow to the currently wavering support for Ukraine.

In this high-stakes diplomatic poker, on the eve of the summit, Budapest has named its ransom and said it would be ready to retract its veto on the financial aid if Brussels agrees to unblock all funds frozen by the bloc over concerns about the rule of law.

But money might be the lesser of the two issues.

Just before heading to Brussels, Orbán reiterated his opposition to opening EU membership talks with Ukraine, calling it a “terrible mistake”, even while Brussels was signalling that it is about to release funds to Budapest.

EU leaders might be looking at hardball negotiations, including an all-nighter potentially spilling over into the weekend. Brussels security around the EU quarter is up until Saturday, and some national delegations booked their accommodation even into Sunday, we understand.

The bottom line is that all scenarios now stand and fall with one EU leader.

Are we going to see the ‘classic Orbán’, putting very harsh positions and demands up front and then ultimately allowing a deal to be made that can be sold as a success back home?

Or is this – contrary to the usual intra-European summit struggles like migration – a play for the long-term, fundamentally challenging the EU’s decision-making principles?

If so, the question is what his ultimate motivation might be, especially as many around Europe are increasingly uneasy with Hungarian officials being way too comfortable shaking hands with their Russian counterparts.

In the past two days, the majority of EU diplomats have been vocal in stressing that a solution on the financial aid at EU26, circumventing Hungary, is a ‘nuclear option’ they would be willing to use.

An additional pressure factor to agree on financial aid at this summit is the ‘Damocles sword’ of wavering US support hanging over Ukraine. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited Washington and left without any more clarity on whether he can count on more US aid to repel Russia.

Rest assured, amid the stalemate in the US Congress, policymakers across the Atlantic are likely to look closely at whether European allies are stepping up and will be ready to use whatever goes down in Brussels as an argument for their own decision.

For green-lighting EU accession talks, however, EU leaders will need unanimity – and it will be very hard to achieve. Kicking the can on Ukraine down towards the next EU summit in March is possible but undesirable to most in the bloc.

Deal or no deal, the external optics of failure on any of the two parts – financial support and/or accession talks – would be not great.

The general understanding in Brussels corridors is that there is a clear difference between acting as the EU26 and acting as an actual Union.

Beyond doubt, 26:1 looks bad when it comes to dealing with any internal issues, migration or else. But it looks even worse when you want to be perceived as a geopolitical actor by the rest of the world.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Olha Stefanishyna put it bluntly earlier this week: A Hungary veto at the summit would be a “failure of the entire bloc, not only of one European leader”.

If, at some point during this EU summit, the moment comes when Orbán single-handedly blocks the proceedings, the other EU26 leaders might for the first time have to rethink their long-term approach – including devising a way to address and contain such paralysing dissent in the future.

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The Roundup

On the eve of a decisive EU summit, member states are locked in eleventh-hour negotiations to secure a deal to increase the EU’s budget this week but still disagree on how to fund it.

EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen hailed on Wednesday the deal struck at the COP28 climate summit as the dawn of a new world with no need for coal or oil.

Nearly every second citizen in Germany and France is either negative towards renewable energies or does not have an opinion on them, according to a recent survey conducted across 26 European countries.

The representatives of the main EU institutions reached a provisional agreement over the Platform Workers Directive in the early hours of Wednesday after almost two years of strenuous negotiations.

The German government has resolved its internal disagreements on how to deal with a €60 billion hole left in the government’s finances after a ruling by the country’s constitutional court, announcing a mix of expenditure cuts and additional sources of income.

EU co-legislators will discuss the thorny issue of protecting journalistic sources at the next negotiation round on the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA), but MEPs are considering postponing the agreement while several EU countries push for more independence of the board of regulators.

Bulgarian MEPs from all political groups except the socialists have sent a letter to EU institutions warning of a “hate campaign” against Bulgaria in Serbia, a move coinciding with the presence in Brussels of Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić for an EU-Western Balkans summit on Wednesday.

The European Parliament and EU member states agreed on Wednesday to establish a central body to clamp down on money laundering as well as attempts to circumvent sanctions.

For more policy news, check out this week’s Health Brief and the Green Brief.