Viktor Orbán has finally dropped his opposition to a €50 billion support package for Ukraine that he had been blocking since December.
The Hungarian prime minister was the sole holdout against the EU funding agreement, but “folded” at a summit last Thursday following a “charm offensive” led by Italian leader Giorgia Meloni, said Politico, and “wining and dining from the French”.
Orbán “performed one of the fastest U-turns” seen at an EU leaders’ meeting, said The Guardian‘s Brussels correspondent Lisa O’Carroll, “after six weeks of brinkmanship”. Finland’s PM Petteri Orpo told reporters in Brussels that “nobody can blackmail 26 countries of the EU”.
Why was Orbán threatening a veto?
Hungary’s right-wing PM “has loomed over Europe like a continental bogeyman”, said Ishaan Tharoor in The Washington Post, and “stymied” the bloc’s “ability to muster a robust, collective response” to support Ukraine’s defence against Russia.
Orbán’s recent manoeuvres on the Ukraine aid deal were part of his “intricate dance” to appease both Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his own voter base, while adhering to the EU’s standards, said Euractiv.
Orbán has long relied on “tools of veiled propaganda”, including “national consultations” – opinion polls – to consolidate his “desired narratives”. The latest such poll was alleged to have found that 99.04% of participants opposed further financial support for Ukraine until Hungary received some or all of approximately €20 billion of “cohesion funding” currently being withheld by the European Commission”.
Hungary draws “vital funds” from Brussels as a member state, said The Washington Post, but “the tap has been partially turned off” in recent years over Orbán alleged violations of the bloc’s rule-of-law provisions. Concerns have also been raised over his pursuit of an ideology that he calls “illiberal democracy”.
How did the EU get Orbán to fold?
Orbán “succumbed to pressure” after a “series of 11th-hour meetings” with Meloni, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Germany’s Olaf Sholz, said The Guardian’s O’Carroll, “as well as the European Commission and Council presidents”, Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel. The striking of a deal was met with relief, but also “a sense of fury among leaders” who had to be “dragged” to Brussels twice in two months to pass the aid package.
Meloni led conversations with Orbán “thanks to their longstanding relationship”, diplomats “from countries that don’t share her far-right political views” reportedly told Politico. “She tried several times to be a bridge and the impression is that this time it worked,” said one of the sources.
According to The Washington Post, European officials also “leaked plans to punish Hungary’s economy” if Orbán continued blocking support for Ukraine, and “floated other punitive measures” including stripping Budapest of its voting rights in the bloc.
What does Orbán get out of the deal?
The EU leaders won him over with “three additions” to the agreement, Politico reported. Annual discussions on the implementation of the aid package will be held, and an annual report produced. And the European Council will ask the Commission to propose a review of the budget in two years, if needed.
The concessions are seen by the EU as minor, but obtaining a review means Orbán “can proclaim victory at home”, the news site added. In a Facebook post following the deal, Orbán wrote: “We fought it out!”
But diplomats reportedly told Reuters that the bloc did not commit to releasing any of Hungary’s frozen cohesion funding until Budapest meets certain conditions. These include “respect for the Hungarian minority”, according to the BBC‘s Budapest-based correspondent Nick Thorpe.
And while Orbán claimed to have received assurances that none of Hungary’s frozen funding would go to Ukraine, officials said there were never any plans for the cash to be reallocated. Orbán can “save face and say he won a veto right”, a diplomat told Reuters, but “that has no teeth”.