The leaders of the European Union (EU) committed this Friday to find a way to overcome at the beginning of 2024 the blockade of Hungary to a new package financial aid to Ukraineafter a two-day summit failed to build consensus on the issue.
“I am extremely confident and optimistic that we will be in a position to fulfill our promise to help Ukraine with financial means,” said the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
The summit of European leaders that started on Thursday in Brussels agreed to begin formal negotiations for the accession of Ukraine to the blockbut failed to build a consensus on a financial aid package to that country for a few 50,000 million euros ($54 billion).
Given the inability to break the hungarian blockadethe leaders agreed to meet again to discuss this issue “at the beginning of next year”, although that summit does not yet have a defined date.
For its part, the owner of the European Comission (the executive arm of the EU)Ursula von der Leyensaid that this institution will use the time remaining until that meeting occurs “to, in any case, ensure that we have an operational solution.”
“We have worked hard to reach an agreement of the 27 [países del bloque]. I think it is also necessary to work on potential alternatives to have a solution in case an agreement by all is not possible,” he noted.
In turn, the head of the German government, Olaf Scholzsaid he was “reasonably optimistic that we can find an agreement by January.”
The Prime Minister of Ireland, Leo Varadkarcommented that “we will have to meet again next year and find an agreement, or define an alternative path.”
Hungarian veto
On Friday morning, the Hungarian Prime Minister, Viktor Orbantold a radio station in his country that the veto would only be lifted in the event of the unblocking of all EU funds to his country, which were frozen due to doubts about the validity of the rule of law.
The EU had announced on Wednesday the unblocking of payments to Hungary for up to 10.2 billion euros (about 11 billion dollars) that had been frozen due to doubts about the functioning of the rule of law in that country.
With Hungary abstaining from the decision on accession negotiations with Ukraine, The expectation was that Orban would end up adding his support to the financial aid packagebut that did not happen.
For his part, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister urged the EU to unblock the 50.00 million euros of aid.
“We hope that all necessary legal procedures will be completed by January 2024, which will allow us to receive the corresponding financing as soon as possible,” the ministry said in a statement.
Thus, the failure of the summit to break Hungarian resistance on financial aid ended up partially overshadowing the historic decision sealed the day before, on accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova.
The EU accession process typically takes several years during which talks are extended and reforms are implemented.and in some cases they can last more than a decade.
To approve the start of dialogue with Ukraine, the leaders agreed that Orban would leave the room at the time of the decision instead of using his veto.
The gesture of opening accession negotiations with Ukraine It was applauded by all the leaders and Von der Leyen commented that Thursday was a day that “will be recorded in the history of our Union.”
However, the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico, commented this Friday that, in his opinion, it was an “unnecessarily overestimated” step.
French President Emmanuel Macron, for his part, said that the EU was still “very far from an effective enlargement in relation to Ukraine.”
In this Friday's session, the EU summit also failed to reach consensus on a common declaration regarding the situation in the Middle East.
In this sense, Varadkar regretted that at the meeting there was a majority of countries in favor of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip “but not unanimity.”
AFP
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