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The comedy provided by Viktor Orbán, a veteran of the European Council with some 14 years of experience, was and remains unforgettable.
"Much ado about nothing." This is the title of William Shakespeare's famous comedy written by the famous British playwright in 1600. It was presented on stage around the same year and we all saw it, at the last European Council, starring, in this new version, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
This happened in the announcement of the opening of membership negotiations with Ukraine as a candidate country for the EU, strongly opposed by Orban and warned with a veto. But that didn't happen.
The comedy provided by Viktor Orbán, a veteran of the European Council with some 14 years of experience, was and remains unforgettable.
As a good actor and mostly experienced on the European political stage, Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of a country with only 10 million inhabitants, which accounts for only 1% of the European GDP, threatened to block one of the most important processes of the EU , but he didn't make it.
The whole process started many months ago, when Orbán threatened the entire EU with a veto, essentially demanding the release of all European funds for Hungary that are in the "freeze" of Brussels, blocked with the claim of something that is not goes to the rule of law of Hungary.
Most of the EU budget for the period 2021-2027 (including the so-called Multiannual Financial Framework) is almost consumed. The European Commission used the funds available to respond to the unprecedented situations imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent Russian occupation of Ukraine. At the same time, these extraordinary situations made the EU member states, for the first time in the history of the EU, give the Commission the power to issue common debt. In other words, borrow from the markets up to 800 billion euros, between 2021 and 2026, so that it can give, in turn, grants and loans to member states. However, the EU's borrowing rate has risen from 0.1% in 2021 to 3% in 2023, with the result that interest repayment costs have skyrocketed and at least €20 billion is needed.
To fill this gap in its "revenue and expenditure book", the European Commission has asked member states to agree to an increase in the EU budget. At the same time the EU agrees, at least based on the majority of member states, to give another 50 billion euros to Ukraine until 2027, of which 17 billion will be grants and another 33 billion in loans.
However, some EU member states also need money, one of them being Hungary. Viktor Orbán urgently needs the frozen money from the EU, so the Commission disbursed 10.2 billion, a move that angered most political groups in the European Parliament, but is not enough for this particular Hungarian regime.
The European Council breakfast included coffee, croissants and fruit. It was attended by the President of the European Council Charles Michel, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the French President Emmanuel Macron, the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Orban's arguments, ie membership negotiations with Ukraine should not be opened, began to collapse one by one. The European Commission's report on Ukraine was signed by the Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement, Oliver Varlehy, a Hungarian and a close associate of Orban.
Over the next 12 hours or so, the Hungarian prime minister's arguments had ceased to exist as the 26 other EU heads of state and government, along with the European Commission, launched an unprecedented attack on Hungary. And Orban backed off. In order to find an agreement, the German chancellor decided to approach Orbán and suggest that he leave the room so that the rest of the European leaders can vote in favor of starting membership negotiations with Ukraine, without "his burden". whatever Berlin meant by the word "burden", trying to melt away some 30 billion euros promised by the European Commission to Hungary.
Viktor Orbán realized that he cannot clash with the entire EU, so he chose what is institutionally called "constructive abstention"./Liberation
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