EU Summit Vote on Ukraine Accession Talks: Orban’s Standoff and the Procedural Solution

2023-12-15 11:32:23

It is now clear how the vote at the EU summit went: Until the start of the summit, the dispute over starting accession talks with Ukraine was considered deadlocked and difficult to resolve. 26 states agreed, only Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stood in the way because he did not see the conditions as being met.

In the end, the solution was not a substantive one, but rather a procedural one. According to information from several sources from the German Press Agency, he was proposed early on Thursday evening by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The SPD politician asked Orban to leave the meeting for the vote in order to enable the necessary unanimous vote from the other heads of state and government. This meant that the Hungarian might stick to his no to the accession negotiations without blocking them.

Immediately following the decision, he made his rejection very clear once more in a Facebook video: “It is a completely senseless, irrational and wrong decision to start negotiations with Ukraine under these circumstances,” said the head of government.

Hungary will not change its position. However, the other 26 EU countries insisted that this decision be made. It remained unclear whether Orban was promised anything in return for his move.

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