When the European Commission recommended, on November 8, opening accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova, the news was cheered in both countries. In the streets of Tbilisi, happy crowds celebrated the more modest recommendation to accord Georgia candidate status.
Yet the atmosphere of joyful expectation soured quickly, at least in the corridors of Brussels where the hard work will have to be done. Something always suspected by cautious officials and other insiders became a stark reality even to external observers — there will be trouble at the approaching European Council meeting on December 14-15, where heads of EU member states are scheduled to confirm the beginning of accession talks.
First, there is the usual suspect, Hungary. While it was to be expected that Victor Orbán would demand that Brussels release €17.8bn ($19.25bn) in frozen EU funds in exchange for voting to open accession talks, he upped the ante.
Orbán went for more ambitious prizes, calling, in his letter to EU Council President Charles Michel, for the whole EU strategy of support for Kyiv to be reviewed. Pointing at the uncertain future of US military support, his letter demanded that the bloc reconsider its strategic goals for Ukraine and all-but spelled out his threat to block the common decision-making process.
The “European Council is not in a position to make key decisions on the proposed security guarantees or additional financial support for Ukraine, endorse further strengthening of the EU sanctions regime or agree on the future of the enlargement process unless a consensus on our future strategy towards Ukraine is found,” he said.
This likely points also to Orbán’s readiness to veto the planned €50bn ($54bn) of aid to Ukraine’s government as well as €500m in military aid.
Behind the scenes, as at least one expert reveals on Twitter/X, added to the demands for unfreezing funds for Hungary and re-considering EU’s Ukraine strategy, is the demand that Ursula von der Leyen should be removed from her post of Commission President after the European Parliament elections in June.
Hungary’s flagrant use of its veto rights in the European Council is nothing new, as anyone who has followed the bloc’s adoption of sanctions on Russia knows. This time, however, Orbán’s coercive behavior comes at a time when other member states also have reasons to be unhappy with what is more widely considered the Commission’s over-commitment to ambitious policy goals.
As the so-called “frugal” (read North European and Scandinavian) member states demand that the Commission trim its next EU budget proposal by €13bn, many are no longer so keen on big financial commitments.
Mujtaba Rahman, Managing Director, Europe of Eurasia Group, writes: “Many member states share Orbán’s reservations about the pace at which Ukraine’s EU path is progressing and are conveniently hiding behind Hungary’s opposition.”
This includes not only the thrifty Dutch and countries bearing the brunt of the EU’s migration problem in the South but reportedly also France, which complicates the prospect of finding a compromise at December’s Council.
Now is the moment when the voices of those EU leaders supportive of Ukraine aid — and its path to membership — should become much louder.
While Germany has been increasingly supportive through 2023 and 2024 (it will double Ukraine military aid to $8.7bn next year), it cannot turn the tide alone, while also battling domestic budgetary troubles.
This is the time for Ukraine’s advocates in the EU, the Baltic states, and hopefully the new Polish government — which should take power soon —to call on other Europeans to give Ukraine the historic chance that may otherwise be missed.
If the decision on opening accession negotiations with Ukraine is hard now, it will be politically even harder in March, shortly before the European elections, when domestic audiences are likely to be preoccupied with other concerns.
Marija Golubeva is a Distinguished Fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). She was a Member of the Latvian Parliament (2018-2022) and was Minister of the Interior from 2021-2022. A public policy expert, she has worked for ICF, a consultancy company in Brussels, and as an independent consultant for European institutions in the Western Balkans and Central Asia.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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