While all EU leaders supported the conclusions on strengthening European defence, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán refused to attend a statement on the bloc's continued support for Kiev.
At the crisis summit in Brussels, the Hungarian prime minister refused to join the EU's joint conclusions on support for Ukraine, forcing the remaining 26 member states to adopt these statements.
All leaders, meanwhile, agreed on statements on strengthening the bloc's collective defence, which referred to the five-point initiative presented earlier this week by European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen aimed at arming the continent.
The extraordinary summit was originally convened in response to the US-Russia negotiations on the future of Ukraine and was conceived as a joint expression of the EU's willingness to step up its efforts to support Ukraine in the short term and to secure its strategic autonomy for defence in the long term.
Following a meeting with EU leaders and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Ukrainian and US officials will meet next week for talks in Saudi Arabia, a sign of a thaw in relations after relations between the two sides came under serious strain following a clash between Zelensky and Donald Trump in the Oval Office last week.
Why did Orbán oppose the conclusions on Ukraine? Some hints
Viktor Orbán refused to support the joint conclusions on the future of Ukraine. Why is this so? Since Donald Trump's inauguration, the Hungarian Prime Minister has fully sided with the US President and supported his initiative to start direct talks with Russia.
Let's look at some of the things that the conclusions contain:
- A commitment to pursue a policy of "peace through strength", which includes continued military and financial support for Ukraine. Orbán has repeatedly opposed this strategy, and for almost two years has single-handedly blocked a joint EU fund of €6.6 billion for military aid.
- The conclusions also call on member states to "rapidly" advance work on the plan proposed by High Representative Kaia Kallas to "coordinate increased EU military support to Ukraine". Orbán and his MPs have already rallied against Kallas's initiative.
- Conditional ceasefire. "Any ceasefire or ceasefire can only take place as part of a process leading to a comprehensive peace agreement," the conclusions state. Orban, like Trump, insists on reaching a quick ceasefire without going into details about what might happen next.
- The text also states that "any such agreement must be accompanied by strong and credible security guarantees for Ukraine that will contribute to deterring future Russian aggression". Trump has refused to provide such guarantees or even a US backstop. Instead, he put forward a mineral deal that he said could act as an economic deterrent. Volodymyr Zelensky warned that this deal would not be enough to stop the Kremlin's expansionism.
euronews/ gnews.cz - RoZ
PHOTO - Facebook Viktor Orbán
English 
Czech 
Spanish 
French 
Italian 
Russian 
Chinese 
German