BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday called his proposal to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to leave the room to avoid endorsing a decision to open European Union membership talks with Ukraine a “friendly Union proposal.”
Thursday’s decision sent a strong signal towards the Kremlin, Scholz said after an EU summit in Brussels, noting it was a miscalculation by Russian President Vladimir Putin that support for Ukraine is waning.
Scholz’s move was the big surprise of the summit, as Orban had been widely expected to veto any move to give Ukraine the green light for membership talks.
Scholz also said he was confident EU states would reach agreement in January on a proposal to give 50 billion euros ($54.5 billion) of financial aid to Ukraine as part of a broader review of the EU budget, blocked by Orban at the summit.
If Orban does not yield at a special summit expected next month, “we have other options to help Ukraine,” Scholz added.
However, the chancellor said there could be no deal to unblock billions of EU funds for Hungary – frozen over concerns about the rule of law – in return for backing EU policies on Ukraine.
“I believe that there must be no linking of unrelated issues,” he told reporters.
“Everything just has to be strictly compliant with the rules,” he added. “This means that if criteria are not met (to release frozen funds), the consequence is that access is restricted.”
French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed optimism that a deal with Hungary could be found, noting the budget package contained more than just aid for Ukraine.
“We are not blocked for Ukraine, concretely,” Macron told reporters. “I think Prime Minister Orban has a strong incentive to converge and find a good consensus with us on our budget.”
($1 = 0.9176 euro)
(Reporting by Andreas Rinke; Writing by Linda Pasquini; Editing by Miranda Murray and Jonathan Oatis)
