Orban may get some unexpected allies in his desire to keep Ukraine out of EU - Politico
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban may find support in his attempt to stop Ukraine's accession to the EU in unlikely places, including French President Emmanuel Macron.
Politico reports this with reference to sources.
Ahead of a meeting of EU leaders in Copenhagen on October 1, European Council President Antonio Costa is lobbying European leaders to find a way around Hungary's resistance to Ukraine's accession to the bloc, as well as other stalled candidates for membership.
The Portuguese politician proposed to change EU rules so that formal accession talks could begin after approval by a qualified majority of leaders, rather than unanimous agreement as is currently required.
It is noted that Costa's plan is controversial. While Orban is the EU leader closest to president vladimir putin and most hostile to Ukraine, other leaders have very different motivations for joining him - mainly to protect their veto power.
According to three EU diplomats and the French EU presidency, who spoke to Politico on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issues, the plan faces opposition from several EU countries, including France, the Netherlands and Greece, and is unlikely to win broad approval in Denmark.
Sources explained that these countries are concerned that by changing the accession rules, they will also limit their own ability to block membership applications they find problematic. This opens up a whole new set of rivalries that Orban can play on: the Greeks, for example, want to show that they can negotiate Turkey's membership, just as the Bulgarians want to be able to draw a line at North Macedonia and the Croats want to block Serbia.
Costa's proposal would open the way forward not only for Ukraine, whose EU membership application has been delayed for months by Orban's veto, but also for Moldova, as the two countries' candidacies are linked.
According to a senior EU official, Costa's proposal will be put up for discussion in Copenhagen on Wednesday, along with another proposal to use frozen russian assets to help Ukraine.
"No leader has so far said a categorical 'no' to this idea," the senior official said.
Finnish President Alexander Stubb told the publication that he supports any attempts to speed up the process: "I personally welcome any decision-making mechanism that gives more flexibility and less room for blocking, and this is especially true for Ukraine."
A senior EU diplomat, who was granted anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters, said: "We are not at all convinced that it is appropriate to change the rules of the game during the game, as some are suggesting. If you have a qualified majority vote [to move the accession process forward], there is a very high risk of over-politicizing the process."
An even bigger challenge is that the very change of the rules requires the consent of all 27 member states, including Hungary.
"If we are to change or improve the decision-making process, it must also be decided unanimously, which seems impossible today," said a French presidency representative.
Costa's initiative received support this week from the European Commission, where officials privately say the current process, which requires unanimous voting at more than 100 stages, is too cumbersome.
Costa's idea is to introduce a qualified majority vote at these intermediate stages so that progress can be made even if a small number of countries oppose it. At the same time, permanent accession to the EU will still be impossible without unanimous approval.
As Ukrainian News Agency earlier reported, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban downplayed the incident with the violation of Ukrainian airspace by Hungarian drones and said, that our state "is not independent and sovereign".
As a reminder, earlier President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported the invasion of a Hungarian reconnaissance drone. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry responded that he "sees ghosts."