• News outlet are being extremely vague about Orban’s motives, but it’s clear that no funds have been unfrozen. By the looks of it, it seems Hungary received no grants at all and just changed its mind out of the goodness of her heart, which is weird.

        From DW

        “From what we are hearing from our sources, they made it very clear to Viktor Orban that he is standing all alone in the EU, blocking this essential aid for Ukraine,” she said, adding that following the message it became clear Orban would finally say yes and so the EU leaders sat together to finalize the deal.

        This makes me wonder if anything went on behind those closed doors. We know that yesterday Orban met with Meloni, who according to euronews

        [Meloni] has fashioned herself as the most dexterous mediator between Budapest and Brussels. Meloni and Orbán held bilateral talks on Wednesday evening in anticipation of the high-stakes meeting.

        All that’s left to hope is that Meloni and other EU leaders succesfully managed to scare off Hungary and that no backroom deals went on.

        •  fr0g   ( @fr0g@feddit.de ) 
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          fedilink
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          78 months ago

          There have been numerous reports about EU officials/MPs considering stripping Hungary of its voting rights preceding this. So most likely Orban as just beenade aware that there’s a limit to which degree he can block stuff while still being allowed to play ball.

  • This is the best summary I could come up with:


    There had been fears that Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban would block the aid package as he had done already at a European summit last December.

    News of the agreement was announced less than two hours after the summit started, surprising many observers who had expected talks to go on much longer due to the depth of disagreement between Mr Orban and the other EU leaders.

    Mr Orban had been pushing for a yearly vote on the package, but this could have left the deal exposed to an annual veto threat from Hungary.

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was “grateful” to EU leaders, highlighting that the decision was taken by all 27 heads of state.

    He stressed that Ukraine was resisting Russia, for everyone - blocking Vladimir Putin’s attempt to challenge the world order by force.

    The EU’s aid package is a little more of the stability Ukraine needs, and will help it help pay pensions and salaries and to keep the heating on over the next four years.


    The original article contains 371 words, the summary contains 170 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!