Hungarian prime minister, Victor Orban, threw a major tantrum at the European Council meeting in Brussels on December 14 2023. Essentially doing the Russian president Vladimir Putin’s bidding, he prevented agreement on a major €50 billion (£25.7 billion) financial package for Ukraine.
His only concession was to abstain from a vote that delivered the long-awaited approval of opening accession talks with Ukraine. Though symbolically important, this does not address some of the key problems that Ukraine is facing as Russia’s full-scale war of aggression is about to enter its third year.
Symbolically, the commitment to open accession negotiations with Kyiv is an important boost for Ukraine’s embattled president Volodymyr Zelensky. It affirms the overwhelming support of EU member states for the country’s European future at a time when backing for Ukraine’s war effort appears to be weakening. But it is just that – a gesture of enormous political symbolism, but without any immediate practical consequences.
