The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, will cut short his first visit to China since 2019 by a day due to the risk of disrupting the EU leadersʼ summit — Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is putting pressure on him and wants to remove negotiations with Ukraine on joining the EU from the agenda.
Politico, citing an official representative of the EU, writes that Michel will be at the EU-China summit for one day and will return to Brussels to continue discussions with leaders on further actions. In part, he is forced to go by the lack of a secure channel for negotiations with China. There are fears that the Chinese special services will listen to him.
Michel already met with Orbán last week in Budapest, trying to defuse tensions ahead of a summit of EU leaders.
French President Emmanuel Macron also wants to meet with Orban. He invited him to Paris.
Politico wrote that the French president invited the Hungarian prime minister to find a compromise regarding Ukraine, and Orbán is inclined to do so. The newspaperʼs source said Orbán had "raised the stakes" to get more money from the EU. The spokesman of the Prime Minister of Hungary has already confirmed that Viktor Orbán will go to Paris this week.
- The Hungarian prime minister previously wrote to the president of the European Council that he would block EU aid to Ukraine and its movement towards EU membership if the EU leaders did not agree to review their entire strategy of supporting Kyiv.
- After the European Commission excluded Hungary from the economic stimulus program to overcome the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the country effectively vetoed the EUʼs decision to provide Ukraine with €50 billion in economic aid until 2027 and to start negotiations with Kyiv on joining the European Union.
- At the end of November 2023, the European Commission approved a €900 million advance to Hungary from the frozen recovery fund. This is how the EU is trying to overcome Budapestʼs veto on aid to Ukraine. On December 8, EU finance ministers will discuss the European Commissionʼs proposal for money for Budapest.