EU summit agrees on Ukraine aid, overcoming Hungary's objections
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00:00 Doug, that was pretty fast. Just an hour ago, we were saying we weren't sure if Victor Orban
00:03 was going to block this or not. Is this a big win for the EU?
00:06 Look, I don't want to be the doom and gloom monger, but I do think that we have to inject
00:10 a slight note of caution here. I'm going to do I'm going to be the not so fast guy.
00:14 What do I mean by that? Clearly, sure, it is a win on the surface for the EU.
00:20 Last December at a similar EU summit, Victor Orban was the one man roadblock.
00:25 He prevented the EU from extending this desperately needed 50 billion euro aid package to Ukraine.
00:31 It made big headlines at the time. And he has been sort of the roadblock all along. So just
00:36 getting this aid through is a big deal. The fact that they've reached agreement and the agreement
00:40 specifically is that Hungary has agreed to drop its veto over funding to Ukraine.
00:45 There had been that threat once again of Hungary being able to step in and defy essentially the
00:50 will, the collective will of the 26 member EU bloc aside from Hungary. So in that sense,
00:56 they managed to push it through and reportedly and I'm saying Politico, which has a lot of inside
01:01 information about what goes on behind the scenes in the EU. They're reporting that this was pushed
01:06 through thanks to closed door meetings that the top EU leaders, the EU Council president,
01:12 the EU Commission president, plus a closed session meeting with the leaders of France,
01:18 Germany and Italy. They basically all got Orban into a room and we don't know,
01:23 pushed him into the corner and basically said, you pass this or else. I mean, look,
01:26 we don't know what happened there. But essentially, there was a full court press by the top EU leaders,
01:32 which eventually also brought in the leaders of Poland, the Dutch prime minister as well,
01:36 the Belgian prime minister. So you could see everyone sort of piling on Orban to get him to
01:40 do this. So that's where the bad news is, right? The bad news is that this should never have
01:44 actually been even an extraordinary summit. This should not have had been necessary, this summit.
01:49 It still shows the outsized influence that Viktor Orban, the right wing prime minister of Hungary,
01:54 has and had has, has had over the EU over the past 14 years since he came to power in Hungary
01:59 at the head of his Fidesz party. So he's still an outsized influence. He still is a thorn in
02:04 the side of the EU. In this case, they overcame and we'll have to see the fine print. Are there
02:09 going to be yearly reviews? And will Viktor Orban have perhaps more influence and be able to
02:14 in some form veto perhaps the renewing of this aid? But this seems to be a four year deal. And
02:20 it seems to be, and I have to underline, seems to be something that Viktor Orban has acquiesced to.
02:25 That is, he is not going to stand in the way next year, the year after of this continued,
02:31 as Charles Michel, the EU Council President put it, steadfast, long term, predictable funding
02:37 for Ukraine. And 50 billion euros is a lot of money. What will it mean for Ukraine?
02:43 Well, it's a lot of money, Jeannie, but guess what? Probably isn't enough. And that's not me
02:47 saying it. That is a lot of military experts. That is a lot of politicians on both sides of
02:52 the Atlantic, especially in the United States. At the end of the day, this is great news. Yes,
02:58 they needed this, this, but this, this was not even sort of an option. Europe desperately needed
03:04 to pass this aid in order to send a signal to Washington, because this is essentially what
03:08 it's doing. It's not just saying to Ukraine, as we say, we put our money where our mouth is,
03:13 we are here with you for as long as it takes. So yes, there's that signal to Kiev, to Volodymyr
03:18 Zelensky, to everyone watching closely in Kiev. But more importantly, it's a shot across the
03:23 Atlantic, where Congress, the Republican Congress House, is basically stalling, hemming and hawing,
03:29 refusing to pass that Ukraine aid, demanding domestic issues, tighter border security,
03:35 immigrant controls, all of that. So it's basically saying to the US, we're here,
03:40 we are giving the money to Ukraine, please follow our, you know, follow our lead, do the same,
03:45 because without the US aid, the 50 billion euros from Europe, while it's a lot, which it will help
03:51 Ukraine with its budget with a lot of its military funding, it will not do the job. So this is
03:56 hopefully going to be an incentive, perhaps, at least from the EU and Ukraine's perspective,
04:01 a strong incentive, okay, Europe's doing it, let's fall into place, it will put extra pressure
04:07 on the Republicans in Congress, a party controlled by its MAGA base right now,
04:13 that is reluctant to give Ukraine more funding. It will now give them pause, perhaps, in an
04:18 election year in the United States, to rethink, the US perhaps doesn't want to look like the
04:24 lone holdout when you do have the EU stepping up for as long as it takes.
04:29 All right, Doug, thanks for that.
04:30 France 24's Doug Herbert.