While the European Council is due to meet on Thursday and Friday in Brussels to decide on an envelope of 50 billion euros for Ukraine, as well as its request for membership in the European Union, Viktor Orban has already and already announced that he would veto these proposals. A political position, but also an economic one.
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Viktor Orban has decided to play spoilsport at the next European Council. While the representatives of the 27 Member States are due to meet on December 14 and 15 in Brussels, to decide on aid of 50 billion euros provided to Ukraine and on its application for membership in the European Union, the Prime Minister Hungarian minister warned that he would oppose it in both cases. A veto which immediately threatens European support for kyiv, since the decision requires the unanimity of member states.
“Ukraine is in difficulty, it is suffering from the Russian invasion, and we have decided to support it. It is therefore legitimate for the entire European Council to send good signals to Ukraine (…) However, there are “other types of signals to send than the opening of negotiations for accession to the European Union. (…) I am in favor of raising our level of cooperation, but that does not mean accession”, declared the Prime Minister Hungarian in an interview with Le Point magazine published on Friday.
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A few days before the European Council, these declarations do not bode well for kyiv, especially as Western support for Ukraine begins to crumble: according to a report from the Kiel Institute, newly committed aid is decreasing by 90% over the period from August to October 2023 compared to the same period last year. For its part, kyiv faces a shortage of ammunition after the failure of its counter-offensive this summer.
“It’s a negotiation strategy”
To avoid any blockage of European aid to Ukraine, Emmanuel Macron invited Viktor Orban to the Élysée on Thursday, December 7, to try to change his position. “Emmanuel Macron maintains good relations with Viktor Orban. The latter criticizes the European Commission very harshly, but not France directly,” explains Jacques Rupnik, emeritus research director at the Center for International Research (Ceri) at Sciences Po Paris.
Less than 24 hours later, EU finance ministers approved paying Hungary 920 million euros of the 10.4 billion euros planned as part of a review of its recovery plan post-Covid-19. The remaining 9 billion remains conditional on reforms to fight corruption and conflicts of interest, improve the independence of justice, freedom of expression and academic freedom, protection of the rights of minorities and migrants. The amount of this aid is not negligible when we know that it represents almost 5% of Hungarian GDP in 2022, and that inflation has just fallen below 10%.
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With more than 6 billion euros in annual grants received since 2018, Hungary is the largest beneficiary of the European Cohesion Fund, which aims to compensate for development delays between EU countries. Last August, the liberal Hungarian weekly HVG even wondered whether Budapest could survive without its funds.
“Viktor Orban has a very transactional approach: ‘I’m blocking unless you release the funds’. It’s a negotiation strategy with the European Union, but I think he won’t go as far as putting his veto”, estimates political scientist Jacques Rupnik.
A membership that would reshuffle the cards for European subsidies
The fact remains that Viktor Orban’s position goes beyond the sole case of Hungary. Ukraine’s accession to the EU would automatically reduce European funds for all Central European countries. “Above all, Ukraine would not return alone,” recalls Jacques Rupnik, referring to Moldova. “There is no question of bringing Ukraine in before the Balkan countries who have been waiting in the waiting room for twenty years” .
Viktor Orban is particularly concerned about the consequences of such enlargement on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU’s first budget with 264 billion euros for 2023-2027. Incorporating Ukraine, the largest agricultural country on the continent (41.5 million hectares of useful agricultural land), would amount to reshuffling the agricultural subsidies cards for each country. According to an informal European study revealed by the Financial Times, Ukraine’s entry into the EU would allow kyiv to reap 96.5 billion euros over seven years in CAP. “If you let this agriculture enter the European agricultural system, it will destroy it the next day,” he warned in Le Point.