(Brussels) European leaders will seek on Thursday to convince the inflexible Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to accept that the EU opens accession negotiations with Ukraine and to renounce his veto on crucial aid to this country in war.
“Very difficult summit”, “complex meeting”, negotiations which could extend beyond Friday, diplomats and European leaders already on site on Wednesday were preparing for long hours of discussions.
Viktor Orban said it again on Wednesday in his parliament: the Europeans would make a “terrible mistake” if they agreed, during this summit in Brussels, to open accession negotiations with Ukraine.
“We must prevent it even if the other 26 members are of another opinion,” he insisted.
Kyiv, for its part, believes that it has fulfilled all the conditions demanded by Brussels before the opening of these negotiations, and is now impatiently awaiting encouragement from the Europeans, which it badly needs.
For weeks, clouds have been gathering over Ukraine: its military counter-offensive has not produced a decisive breakthrough. Dozens of people were injured overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday by a salvo of Russian missiles against Kyiv, the heaviest death toll in months in the capital. And a strike left 11 injured Thursday at dawn in the Odessa region, in the south of the country, according to the emergency services. For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry announced Thursday that nine Ukrainian drones had been shot down in the Kaluga and Moscow regions.
Western aid, essential to the Ukrainian war effort, is blocked, both in Washington and in Brussels. Because Viktor Orban also refuses that the EU grants new aid of 50 billion euros to Ukraine, first demanding a “strategic debate” among the 27 on the continuation of their support for Kyiv.
And without Western aid, “of course, we cannot win,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reminded Wednesday in Oslo.
“I am going to meet Viktor Orban and I am working night and day to obtain positive decisions,” assured Wednesday the President of the European Council Charles Michel, who is leading the debates of the 27 during the summits.
We still need to know what the Hungarian Prime Minister, often alone against everyone, intends to obtain this time.
Hungary is demanding that the European Union release all the funds due to it, but which have been frozen due to breaches of the rule of law.
She obtained the release of ten billion euros on Wednesday, after a decision by the European Commission which provoked the anger of MEPs. Several of them denounced the weakness of Brussels in the face of the “blackmail” of the Hungarian Prime Minister.
The latter nevertheless swears that this decision, announced opportunely on the eve of the summit, will change nothing in his principled position on Ukraine.
Putin’s “veto”
“I asked him to give me a reason, not three, five or ten, but one reason. I am still waiting for the answer,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “He has no reason to block Ukrainian membership in the EU. » Refusing it would mean that Russian President Vladimir “Putin has vetoed it,” he said.
Will the Hungarian leader finally give in to pressure from his European partners, as he has done in the past, after having obtained certain concessions?
“Viktor Orban is the most experienced European leader” within the European Council, which brings together member states, explains a European official, on condition of anonymity. “I think he knows exactly how not to find himself alone in the corner of the ring”, isolated from all other European countries, he assures.
We still need to offer him a way out, without driving Ukraine into despair.
The political signal to be given to Kyiv and other European countries “is very important”, and must be understood in Kyiv as a “decision”, otherwise it would cause strong disappointment after almost two years of war against Russia, explained for his part a European diplomat.
The terms of a compromise could hinge on timing.
The European Commission has proposed opening accession negotiations with Ukraine in two stages: a decision by the 27 this week and a second next year on the framework to establish these negotiations.
The 27 could try to find a formulation around this timetable, which would reassure Kyiv while not offending Budapest, according to diplomats.
Unless Viktor Orban is this time tempted to go all the way.
Asked on Wednesday about a possible “Huxit” (Hungary’s exit from the EU), the Prime Minister said: “I do not want to leave, but to take power […] from the inside”, by bringing together more and more countries.