HS Analysis | EU ministers swore unity in Kiev just when it is most doubted

Brussels

On Monday The meeting of foreign ministers of the EU countries organized in Kiev was a performance of solidarity and unity, organized with difficulty.

Organizing a joint meeting of the leadership of 27 countries and the EU foreign affairs administration outside the Union, in the capital of a country at war, is a huge logistical operation with real security risks. Such arrangements are not undertaken lightly. They were taken because the EU wanted to send a message.

“By coming to Kyiv, we are sending a strong message of solidarity and support”, EU Commissioner for External Relations Josep Borrell said.

By choosing the meeting place, the EU also signaled that Ukraine is already part of the family, even though official negotiations on membership have not started.

“This will hardly be the last meeting of the Foreign Affairs Council in Kyiv. Maybe the next time we meet, Ukraine will be a member or strongly on its way to becoming one,” the foreign minister Elina Valtonen said.

Messages come in handy now. Russia’s attack on Ukraine has lasted a year and a half, and never before have there been as many concerns about the continuation of EU support as there is right now. With the support of Ukraine, they have started playing short-term domestic political games.

At the weekend, a left-wing populist and Russia-sympathizer won the elections in Slovakia Robert Ficowho in his campaign promised that the country would no longer send a “cartridge of cartridges” to Ukraine.

The same game is also being played by Poland’s right-wing conservative government, which is preparing for the mid-October elections. Perhaps to divert voters’ attention away from the government’s embarrassing corruption scandal, the Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he would stop sending new weapons to Ukraine.

In both cases, it remains to be seen what kind of concrete actions the tough campaign rhetoric will eventually lead to. All in all, the message to Ukraine and its supporters is alarming. Fico and Morawiecki may also unknowingly conjure up such political forces that they ultimately cannot control themselves.

Quirky Hungary is its own chapter. Prime minister Viktor Orbán has been playing a game throughout the war in which he criticizes the EU’s foreign policy line and sanctions and uses Ukraine’s support measures as a means to obtain various concessions.

The latest example of this is the payment installment of 500 million euros from the EU peace fund that Ukraine is waiting for. Hungary has blocked the payment of the aid because it wants Ukraine to remove the Hungarian OTP bank from the public “war financiers” list of shame. OTP has extensive business operations in Russia.

Ukraine has announced that it agrees to Hungary’s demand, but the EU’s foreign ministers did not make a decision on moving the installment on Monday. The Hungarian foreign minister did not come to Kyiv, which was inevitably interpreted as a symbol in a meeting full of symbolism.

of the EU decision-making is fragile in the face of such a game. For example, sanctions decisions require consensus.

In the coming weeks and months, cracks on the EU front will be blamed with exceptional precision. The preparation of the 12th sanctions package is ahead, and there are signs in the air that some member countries are unwilling to significantly expand sanctions.

At the same time, the EU is having difficulty agreeing on Ukraine’s multi-year support package of 50 billion euros, which is linked to negotiations on the EU budget.

There is less symbolism in these negotiations, but even more concreteness.