It was remarkable how little attention EU foreign ministers paid on Monday, March 16, to the bloc’s pending €90 billion loan for Ukraine, which remains blocked by Viktor Orbán.
The agreement to lend Kyiv the money was trumpeted as a rabbit-out-of-the-hat success at the December leaders’ summit. Yet, because of Hungary’s veto, the EU faces the absurd situation of emerging from this week’s summit no closer to addressing Ukraine’s dire financial needs than it was before Christmas.
Few top-tier European leaders want to risk publicly antagonizing Orbán ahead of Hungary’s 12 April election, even if privately many favor his rival, Péter Magyar. Their mantra that Orbán must honor the deal he struck in December is hardly surprising, given his government now turbocharges every closed-door criticism into a campaign opportunity. But nor is it particularly courageous.
Passing the buck to the Commission, as some leaders are doing, is an odd strategy. We are a long way from October 2024, when Ursula von der Leyen openly confronted Orbán over his warmth towards Moscow – then, of course, she was campaigning for another term.
In the room on Monday, Poland and Germany vented frustration at Hungary’s obstruction.
But the meeting’s focus was instead on another display of European powerlessness: the swiftly dismissed idea of granting the EU naval mission Aspides a military mandate to help Donald Trump secure the Strait of Hormuz.
The mission’s name – Greek for “shields” – should have been a clue it would not turn offensive. Germany, Italy and others ruled it out. “Nobody” wants to join a war they didn’t start, Kaja Kallas said. (My colleague Charles Cohen has a handy explainer here).
At her tightly choreographed press conference, Kallas left the stage when I asked about the loan, eager not to be late for a meeting with her Indian counterpart. No one doubts her support for Kyiv, but she has so far been unable to shift Budapest’s position – nor have national foreign ministers.
She spent more time discussing a draft EU long-term security strategy than the financing plan to avert Ukraine’s fiscal crunch within two years.
The leaders’ caution is odd given the scale of what Hungary is now blocking in Brussels: the €90 billion loan for Ukraine, the use of the European Peace Facility to reimburse weapons donations to Kyiv, the opening of accession talks with Ukraine, the 20th sanctions package on Russia (alongside Slovakia), sanctions on violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and measures against Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party (again with Slovakia).
Hungary’s vetoes have become so frequent that, according to one diplomat, there are some proposals the EU doesn’t even bother trying to put forward anymore.
It will fall to leaders at the European Council later this week to unblock this small stretch of choppy waters into which Europeans have so far not dared to venture.
See the original of this report by Eddy Wax and Nicoletta Ionta for Euractiv’s Rapporteur here.