Commentary following the EU summit last week can be roughly divided into two types. While some prefer to see the glass as half full, with the decision to open accession negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova dominating the news, others say that Hungary’s positioning, and not just on Ukraine, is becoming increasingly problematic for the EU, and it is time other member states did something about Victor Orbán’s obstruction of crucial decisions.
Hungary’s veto on releasing the long-awaited €50bn ($55bn) aid package to Ukraine significantly undermined the positive message generated by the summit. But there are nonetheless encouraging conclusions to be drawn, and not only for candidate states.
There is, at last, a sense of German leadership on EU enlargement, even if this was oddly manifested — Chancellor Olaf Scholz invited Orbán to leave the room as a face-saving means to usher through the crucial vote on opening Ukraine’s accession talks.
If this had been a fictional tale, some readers would have found Scholz’s change of heart incredible, given that he barely agreed to Ukraine’s candidate status in summer 2022. But in real life, a change of leaders’ political perspective does happen, with time, not least due to a well-informed debate underway this year among the German foreign policy community.
For now, it appears that the pro-enlargement position of some in the German Bundestag and Ministry of Foreign Affairs has won the day, and rather than remain skeptical or disengaged, the Chancellor has chosen to lead this trend. This is promising, given that Germany was also a leader of the previous EU enlargement. This time around, however, Germany would not have been able to pull it off without heavyweight support from Poland, and that arrived in the form of Donald Tusk, who finally took the prime minister’s job in December after his election win two months earlier.
There is now a profound sense of ill-will toward Hungary. One senior official stated, tartly, that “at least 26” of the bloc’s leaders were responsible people, while a senior EU diplomat told Reuters the Budapest government were “hooligans” on Ukraine policy. This language is unusual and reflects the deep sense of aggravation at Orbán’s policy. By Marija Golubeva, CEPA
