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EU leaders gathering in Brussels have vowed to find a way to support Ukraine after Hungary’s Viktor Orbán vetoed a €50bn lifeline for the war-torn country.
Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said “Ukraine will not be left without support” and that there was a “strong will” among the other 26 EU member states to deliver the necessary aid. Belgian PM Alexander De Croo also reassured Kyiv that “we will be there to support you, we need to figure out a few details”.
In the early hours of Friday, EU leaders failed to convince the Hungarian prime minister to agree to the €50bn funding package for Ukraine, which would have come from the bloc’s common budget and be paid to Kyiv over the next four years in the form of grants and loans.
The EU’s leaders will reconvene for a summit in January for further talks in the hope that they can bring Orbán on board or force the package of support through without his backing.
The sense of urgency for the EU to find a solution is amplified by the US Congress’s repeated failure to approve a $60bn aid package proposed by the White House. On Thursday, Congress agreed to the much smaller sum of $300mn as part of a wider military spending bill as negotiations over the larger package drag on.
Balázs Orbán, the prime minister’s political director, who is no relation, said Hungary would only agree to using the EU budget for Kyiv if the EU agreed to release further funding to Budapest which has been frozen because of concerns over the rule of law.
“We don’t get our money. Why would we have any further [financial] facility?” he said.
However, he reiterated that Budapest could contribute to a fund outside the budget that lasted less than four years. “Hungary is not against supporting Ukraine financially outside the budget, for a lot shorter period of time” and with “some recommendations”.
He also said other EU member states had been “blackmailing Hungary for years” by withholding cash. On Wednesday the European Commission agreed to release €10bn of funding to Hungary but €30bn remains blocked.
Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said a “workaround” could be crafted.
“We still think it’s possible to get an agreement among the 27, we will try to get to that space in the new year,” Varadkar said. “A bit of time and space over the Christmas period may help.”
Estonia’s Kallas said a solution among the 26, outside the EU budget, could be found but warned it would take more time to deliver. “We are all democracies and democracies take time, but Ukraine does not have the time,” she said.
Despite vocal opposition before the summit, Hungary’s premier did allow leaders to approve the start of EU accession talks with Ukraine by leaving the room during the vote. Orbán said on Friday he did so because there were still ample opportunities to veto Kyiv’s accession process in the years to come.
“It was necessary to send this political signal to our friends in Ukraine,” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda said. “Of course this is only the first page of [a] very long process.”
On the aid package, Orbán said: “They wanted to give the money of the member states, and thus also the money of the Hungarians, to Ukraine. And I said, well, this is already a specific violation of rights, let’s stop, I have to veto this.”
Leaders are due to discuss the situation in the Middle East and security and defence during the remainder of the summit on Friday.
Additional reporting by Marton Dunai in Budapest
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