The summit of the European Union, which will take place at the end of this week in Brussels, will undoubtedly be one of the key and dramatic events for the EU in the coming year.
Because it is not only about Ukraine.
The European Union is entering a crisis of internal disputes that block decision-making and can render Brussels helpless in crisis matters due to the blockade by those radical leaders for whom the existence of a powerful and influential united Europe is rather an evil, rather than a good.
Therefore, the history of decisions on support for Ukraine is vitally important not only for our country, but also for the EU itself . And the decisions taken (or not taken) in Brussels at the end of this week could become decisive for the future of the bloc.
Yes, you got it right - it's currently about Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán, but he expects that he won't be alone for long. What's more: Hungary has already received a situational ally. It turned out to be Austria. Although she will most likely agree to give in, it is more difficult with Orban. Especially after his meeting with Putin .
In the key capitals of Europe, meanwhile, they understand well what the consequences of the blockade of Ukraine will be. This increases the pressure on Orbán, but at the same time allows him to raise the stakes.
The most realistic scenario at the moment is that the summit will not give the green light to start negotiations with Ukraine, however, to compensate for this, the EU will agree on funding for Kyiv. Will it be "betrayal"? Is it a victory, but incomplete? It depends on the details of the agreement with Orbán, as well as whether he has another, more attractive offer. Although the chances of success remain: Brussels top officials estimate them at 20-30%.
Why Austria against Ukraine?
Statements that Austria plans to disagree with the decision to start negotiations with Ukraine appeared the other day and surprised many.
Federal Chancellor Karl Neghammer made the loudest statement: he publicly said at a meeting with Austrian deputies that Austria would not agree to negotiations on Ukraine's accession to the EU "under the current conditions."
Moreover, these "conditions" are not related to Ukraine itself, and Vienna does not hide this. The Austrians have their favorites among the candidate states. In particular, we are talking about Bosnia and Herzegovina. And the claim is that Brussels proposes to start accession negotiations with Ukraine, but not with Bosnia.
In response, Austria, in fact, began open blackmail of the European Union.
Like, either you, together with Ukraine, open the door for our favorite, or both remain behind the door.
And in the EU, the principle of unanimity applies to these issues: each country has the right of veto.
But why does Austria act like this? Isn't this just an excuse to block the decision on Ukraine under an artificial, far-fetched pretext? Does Vienna not fulfill the "friendly requests" of Russia , to which many Austrian politicians and businessmen still have sentiments? Many people may have such questions, but the answer to them is unequivocal: no, the question is really in Bosnia .
In the circle of European integrators, they have been talking about the Austrian (and essentially Bosnian) problem for a long time, hoping that Vienna will give in. However, instead of concessions, escalation began.
Where did this "love for Bosnia" come from? The fact is that Austria has special feelings for the Balkan states that were once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and because of this, it is a long-standing and consistent supporter of the integration of this region into the EU. But the problem is that Bosnia, despite all the Austrian assistance, remains a failed state with a broken system of public administration. Therefore, the rest of the EU states, except for Austria and possibly Hungary, believe that the Bosnians are not ready for this step.
So Austria's ultimatum will not be satisfied .
However, all sources are confident that Austria will give in at the last moment. And the statements from Vienna hint at this - even Negammer did not use the word "veto" and did not deny himself the opportunity to abstain and thus fulfill his promise to his deputies (they said, "I did not support this decision!"), but also not to block the start of negotiations between Ukraine and the EU.
"If we translate these demands from the Austrian language into a commonly understood one, then Austria's position sounds like this: we want to knock something out for Bosnia and therefore we will use Ukraine as a lever of pressure on all of you," one of the high-ranking officials of the European Council aptly commented in the "off the record" conversation , expressing confidence that there will be no Austrian veto.
But the problem is that even temporary Austrian blackmail strengthens the position of the real enemy of Ukrainian European integration - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Because at the EU summit it will create a kind of "Austria-Hungary". Let this union be temporary and situational, let the arguments of Budapest and Vienna be fundamentally different - it doesn't matter.
What is important is what Orban will feel: he is not attacking Ukraine alone. And this will strengthen his position.
What does Orban need?
The Hungarian prime minister, unlike the Austrian one, has no intention of giving in and is determined to promise the summit's decision. Everyone who follows news from the EU already knows about this.
In recent days, Orbán has made the rhetoric extremely tough.
Until about the end of November, all the statements of the Hungarian leader were built in such a way that they predicted a compromise in which Orbán would give in, but save face. He transparently hinted at exchanging Ukraine's European integration for money for Hungary. And also - he constantly changed concepts and said that he opposed Ukraine's accession to the EU during the war - although now the agenda is not accession, but only the beginning of negotiations, which will last more than one year.
And then something happened - and Orbán started burning bridges. And the closer to the summit, the more uncompromising the rhetoric became.
A day before leaving for Brussels, he even gave a keynote the Hungarian parliament And this change in rhetoric confused even experienced Brussels officials who, despite their aversion to Orbán, are used to working with him and know how to "read" his signals.
One of the leading officials of the European Council shared in a conversation with journalists "off the record":
"Do you want to understand what Orbán wants? But if only we could understand it ourselves! I hope we will hear it at the summit. And so far we only see that he is changing his claims. Yes, earlier he spoke about the protection of the Hungarian minority, but now it is no longer heard, and geopolitical arguments have appeared instead."
The change mentioned in the quote above deserves attention.
Because a radical change really took place here.
Statements about the alleged violation of the rights of the Hungarian minority in Ukraine have long become the basis of Budapest's foreign policy towards our country, but at the same time, all Kyiv's attempts to find an acceptable compromise met resistance from Orbán personally. The prime minister several times broke the agreements agreed at the working level regarding the language of education, with which his government officials agreed. The last time was this fall.
All this has long since forced Ukrainian experts and government officials to assume that Orbán is not really interested in the situation of the Hungarian minority and its rights.
And current events confirmed it.
Realizing that Ukraine intends to settle this conflict, he deleted this claim from his anti-Ukrainian rhetoric. So when the Verkhovna Rada adopted a truly balanced law on minorities, and even the Hungarians of Ukraine began to appeal to Budapest to "bury the hatchet", Orbán answered categorically : no negotiations with Ukraine, no membership.
It turned out that the opinion of the Hungarians of Transcarpathia, which Orbán used to cover up for many years, is not really of interest to the Hungarian government.
Now Orbán's arguments are centered around geopolitics and money.
He said that now it is not possible to commit to long-term support for Kyiv, because even in the USA, Trump will soon win and Washington will cease to be pro-Ukrainian. This is the first block of arguments coming from Orbán.
And the second block is that negotiations with Ukraine, they say, cannot be conducted, because if in the end it joins the EU, then its membership will cost the European budget very much and therefore is not acceptable for Hungary in principle.
The main intrigue is the question of what is the reason for such a drastic change. Because there are at least three main versions.
Hungary, Russia or Trump?
Let's start with the version that Western European politicians consider rather conspiratorial, but for those who have dealt with Russia, it sounds quite natural.
This is a variant of Russian influence.
The fact is that Orbán is the only European leader who recently spoke with Putin personally. The content of their meeting in China and the agreements reached are not known for sure, but after that visit, negotiations at the level of the leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intensified. Budapest also received long-awaited promises from Russia to build (with Russian funds) the Paksh-2 nuclear power plant in Hungary.
During these negotiations, was there not a very persistent request of the Russian Federation to do anything, at any cost, to prevent the adoption of a symbolic EU decision on the start of accession negotiations with Ukraine?
However, there are many arguments that do not allow stopping only on this version.
First, the meeting with Putin took place almost two months ago, and Hungary's position became categorical only now. Secondly, and the main thing: there is a huge doubt whether Putin is able, in principle, to offer Orbán something that will outweigh European funding for him.
That is why the second version - the financial one - sounds more often.
Currently, Hungary has very deep financial problems, because due to the policy of the Orbán government, Budapest has lost access to part of the European funds. We are talking about multibillion-dollar losses (a figure of 13 billion euros in two years appears).
And in order to convince Brussels and other capitals to unfreeze these funds, Orbán has to block something that is very important to other member states. And then, when it becomes unbearably hot, sell your vote "too expensive".
However, this version is not without flaws, because recently Orbán has both publicly and privately refused to exchange his vote for Ukraine for money. It is felt that this issue has more weight for him.
Therefore, there is also a third version - ideological.
It is the most difficult.
Over many years of confrontation with the EU, Orbán has immersed himself in it so much that a return to normal relations with Brussels is no longer possible. And the politics of Budapest has categorically departed from European values. Pressure on minorities, lack of freedom of speech, controlled media instead of freedom of the press, oppression of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, etc.
So, according to this version, Orbán is most interested in building an anti-liberal coalition in Europe. So that he is not just an outcast, but has permanent allies both in the EU and in NATO - and in the latter it should be primarily the potential new president of the United States, Donald Trump, whose victory Orbán is very much counting on.
But in Europe with anti-liberal allies, it is difficult.
Right-liberals won in Poland. In the Netherlands, the "libertarian" Wilders, having won the elections, seems to lose the competition for the coalition. In Slovakia, Orbán's friend Robert Fico became the prime minister, but he was not ready to go against the rules and even on the super-key issue of Ukraine, he "abandoned" his Hungarian partner and agreed to vote like everyone else - that is, for the start of Ukraine's accession negotiations with the EU. And Orban's former friend, the Italian Prime Minister Meloni, after being elected to the post, turned into a fully conscious politician, pro-Ukrainian and pro-European.
So naturally, Orbán might have a desire to break this strange power of the EU, which constantly leaves him alone in European discussions. And the only way to do this is to make the European Union weak and ineffective. In particular, blocking the most important decisions. History with Ukraine may well fit this role.
By the way, the EU itself is aware of this danger.
And more and more often we have to hear that the current dispute with Orban is not about Ukraine. And about the ability of a united Europe to act quickly and decisively in crisis situations. Hungary's abuse of the veto nullifies this possibility. And that is why EU leaders are determined to do anything to convince Orbán. No matter how long it lasts. For example, Charles Michel is seriously preparing for the fact that the current two-day summit will actually last three days, and at least the first "day", when the Ukrainian issue will be resolved, may drag on until the morning.
Ready to fail?
Which of the three reasons listed above is Orbán's main driver? It is quite possible (and even very likely) that each of them has a partial effect. Perhaps there is also a fourth, completely different one. Only the Prime Minister of Hungary knows this for sure.
But if Orban really decided to block negotiations with Ukraine, no one will be able to force him to give in. And even cautious Eurobureaucrats are now skeptical. "The chances of success are 20-30%," one of the senior officials shared with journalists on Wednesday. Although given the latest statements, this estimate seems even too high.
The Ukrainian leadership is also preparing for refusal.
