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BRUSSELS — It was supposed to be a big day for Ukraine. Instead, it may be a big day for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s campaign to disrupt and dominate European politics.
At a European Union summit in Brussels on Thursday, European leaders will decide whether to open accession talks with Ukraine, potentially bringing the country a step closer to its long-held dream of joining the union.
While 26 E.U. leaders want Ukraine’s candidacy to move forward, the 27th, Orban, is threatening to block the decision, as well as a critical $50 billion aid package, unless he gets his way — and his money.
As U.S. support for Ukraine wobbles, E.U. takes up membership question
The showdown comes at a critical moment when Ukraine’s battlefield progress has stalled and the country is also fighting to secure $60 billion from the United States, where support for the war appears to be waning.
“Hungary’s Orban seems to be emboldened by the political gridlock over further Ukraine funding in Washington and disappointment with Ukraine’s counteroffensive,” said Alissa de Carbonnel, deputy director of the International Crisis Group’s Europe and Central Asia program, in an email.
“E.U. leaders didn’t expect to be haggling over their big funding package for Ukraine at the eleventh hour.”
Since the decisions require unanimity, E.U. leaders will spend Thursday trying to find a way to secure Hungarian support without completely surrendering to Hungarian demands.
On the eve of the summit, the European Commission announced it was unlocking more than $10 billion in funds meant for Hungary that it froze over concerns about the rule of law, saying the country had now met conditions related to judicial independence. Some insist the timing is coincidence. Others see it as giving in to blackmail.
In an interview with Bloomberg News this week, Orban’s top political adviser suggested that Hungary is, in fact, negotiating — and that unblocking more money could move Hungary to change its tune on Ukraine.
Ahead of the talks, some called on E.U. leaders to hold fast in the face of Hungarian demands. “Support for Ukraine is imperative to protect Ukrainians and Europeans,” said French Member of European Parliament Valérie Hayer, in a statement. “But we must not compromise our values.”
For now, leaders, officials and diplomats appear to be looking for ways to either accommodate Orban, or at least work around him, perhaps by adding additional steps or conditions to Ukraine’s path to membership or finding a way for 26 member states to send aid to Ukraine without Hungary.
Ukraine’s Zelensky appears increasingly embattled as U.S. backing wavers
For Ukraine, the stakes could not be higher.
A delegation of senior Ukrainian officials visited Washington this week to plead with lawmakers for more funding. But they left with little to show for the effort as Senate Republicans once again blocked the proposed package of aid.
Nearly two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion, with winter looming and supplies running low, aid is needed to keep Ukraine running — and fighting — in the short-term, officials said. Progress on accession is also seen as critical, both for morale and for the message it sends to Russia.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian officials and diplomats have been engaged in furious diplomacy as they try to shore up support in both the United States and Europe.
Ukrainian officials stress that Ukraine has worked hard to meet criteria set out by the European Commission, which in November recommended that the E.U. open accession negotiations with Ukraine, as well as Moldova.
On Thursday, Olga Stefanishyna, Ukraine’s deputy prime minister for European and Euro-Atlantic integration, laid out Ukraine’s case on X, formerly Twitter, and called out Orban’s antics.
European Council decisions on Ukraine “are a piece of a much bigger puzzle,” she said. “The stakes are too high to have someone play with it.”
A positive decision from the E.U. this week would be a boost for Ukraine, but membership remains a long way off.
Joining the E.U. typically takes many years. The political and legal systems of prospective members are scrutinized and slowly brought into compliance with E.U. rules.
Several countries, including Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Bosnia, have been in membership talks for years. Turkey applied to join in 1987 and officially remains a candidate, in theory, despite the fact that its odds look extraordinarily slim.
The fact that Ukraine is still at war makes its case more complicated. In Brussels, there is broad agreement that welcoming Ukraine would send an important signal to Russia, but much division about what welcoming Ukraine and other new members would mean for the E.U.
If Ukraine joined today, it would be the E.U.’s fifth-most-populous nation and its poorest by a wide margin, shifting the group’s balance of power and disrupting its internal market. Many believe key institutions would need to be reformed before Ukraine could join.
On Thursday, as the meetings got underway in Brussels, a Hungarian spokesman, Zoltan Kovacs, said Orban had informed E.U. leaders that it is not the time to discuss Ukrainian accession.
Orban told them that Hungary is “genetically immune to pressure,” he said, and will “uphold its decisive position on enlargement.”