2023-11-13 19:31:30
Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) will take part in an EU meeting with several EU heads of government in Berlin on Monday evening. At the EU summit in Granada in October, it was agreed to discuss the EU’s goals in an informal exchange in smaller groups. According to the EU Council, the issues to be discussed include future EU enlargement, the future financing of the EU and the reform of EU decision-making and voting rules.
The small group meetings take place in several capitals of the European Union. According to the Federal Chancellery, in addition to Chancellor Nehammer, EU Council President Charles Michel and the host, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the heads of state and government from Greece, Belgium, Cyprus, Lithuania and Hungary are also represented in Berlin. The relationship with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is particularly difficult. Hungary has still not given the green light for EU partner Sweden to join NATO. Hungary is also skeptical regarding Ukraine’s prospects of joining the EU as desired by the EU Commission.
According to the Chancellery’s announcement, Austria’s focus is particularly on a “paradigm shift in the area of migration”, “strengthening the EU’s competitiveness in the world” and “an honest approach to enlargement in which all potential candidates are treated equally.” . The European Union should “concentrate on the big questions and take a step back on smaller questions,” Nehammer demanded. The Chancellor once once more emphasized that the EU asylum system is “broken”. With regard to future EU enlargements, Nehammer warned that there should be “no fast-track procedure for some candidates”. The objection apparently referred to Ukraine, with which the EU Commission had recently recommended accession negotiations.
“Nobody has promised anyone a fast-track procedure, this is pure populism that the Chancellor is once once more pursuing out of fear of the FPÖ,” NEOS foreign policy spokesman Helmut Brandstätter then said angrily. “Ukraine is fighting at the forefront for our basic European values, our freedom and our democracy – it therefore deserves to have serious accession talks with it,” he said in a broadcast. “By announcing the accession talks, the EU Commission clearly signaled to Putin and his friends that Europe cannot be divided. Nehammer should do the same and not fall into the fear-mongering of those who understand Putin – neither in terms of enlargement nor in matters Asylum, where the ÖVP has been blocking solutions for years.”
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