2023-07-01 00:30:23
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The heads of the European Union countries at the summit in Brussels failed neither to agree on ways to solve the migration problem, nor to conclude an agreement on the reform of the electricity market. Disagreements arose on the issue of assistance to Ukraine.
When discussing the plan for the distribution of refugees among the EU states, the main troublemaker was Poland, which was supported by Hungary. Polish President Andrzej Duda, following the summit, accused the authorities in Brussels of being more willing to help non-EU countries solve the migration problem than their own allies.
“I don’t understand why the European Commission and European institutions spent billions of euros to help Turkey when it received a million Syrian migrants, but were not willing to help Poland, which received millions of refugees from Ukraine,” Duda said.
A day earlier, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki called for a reform of the EU’s external border security agency (Frontex) and more funds for countries that have to protect the EU’s outer perimeter. Poland objects to signing a migration agreement with the EU in its current form, because then it will either have to accept an additional number of migrants, in addition to the one and a half to two million that Warsaw estimates have already arrived from Ukraine, or pay other countries for it. It is possible that an attempt will be made in Poland to hold a national referendum on this issue.
Italian Prime Minister George Meloni said on Friday that she tried until the last moment to convince Poland and Hungary to approve an agreement to curb migration, but she did not succeed. For Italy, this issue was one of the key issues on the agenda of the current EU summit, the agency notes. TASS, recalling that this country is subject to significant migratory pressure. Since the beginning of the year, almost 65,000 refugees have arrived by sea, mainly from Tunisia, to the southern coast of Italy, more than twice as many as last year.
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At the same time, Rome has been insisting for a long time on the application of the principle of equal distribution of migrants across the EU countries according to quotas, as well as the revision of the Dublin agreements, according to which the acceptance of migrants falls on the country of their arrival.
With regard to the agreement on the reform of the European electricity market, objections were raised primarily from Germany, Austria and Luxembourg. They disagreed with the European Commission on the issue of expanding state aid to energy companies.
Brussels’ idea is to make European electricity prices more stable and avoid a repeat of last year’s crisis, when record high gas prices sent consumers into huge electricity bills. However, a solution to this problem is hampered by disagreements over the extent to which EU countries can subsidize existing power plants using new government contracts with a fixed price. Opponents of the reform fear that such moves might distort the European energy market, giving some states a competitive advantage.
Agency Archyde.comreferring to sources among European diplomats, reports that the main stumbling block was the possibility of granting EU subsidies to French nuclear power plants.
Following the results of the summit, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz acted as the main speaker on issues related to Ukraine. He said that EU leaders in Brussels discussed the issues of providing long-term assistance to Kyiv, as well as expanding the production of ammunition in Europe. “We actively discussed how to strengthen the role of Europe in the North Atlantic Alliance. It is clear to me that we must expand our defense capacities in Europe and increase the productivity of our defense industry. This applies especially to the production of ammunition, ”said Scholz (quoted from TASS).
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According to the chancellor, the EU countries at the summit agreed to “make long-term commitments” in regard to assistance to Ukraine. At the same time, Scholz noted that this should also be understood as a signal to Moscow that it will not be possible to “sit out” the conflict and ensure that the West one day stops supporting Kiev.
However, as he writes RBC, on the eve of the summit, Ireland, Malta and Austria tried to resist the adoption of the draft EU declaration prepared by France. They wanted to clarify what commitments the EU wants to make to expand assistance to Ukraine.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban took a special position. He stated that further financial assistance from Brussels to Kyiv would not lead to a cessation of hostilities. According to him, further cash infusions only prolong the conflict and later force more funds to be spent on the restoration of Ukraine.
On Thursday, the Hungarian prime minister criticized the plans of the European Commission to allocate 50 billion euros from the EU budget in the form of grants and loans for military assistance to Ukraine over the next four years. “So far, Hungary’s point of view is quite clear: we consider the EC proposal to be absurd, unsuitable for negotiations. In connection with the support provided to Ukraine, first of all, we would like to see how much money the European Union has allocated to Ukraine by this moment from various sources and where they have gone, ”leads RIA Novosti the letters of Orban.
Also in Brussels, the topic of the possible use of Russian assets frozen in the European Union for the restoration of Ukraine was once more raised. “We will carefully focus on studying profits from the immobilized assets of the Bank of Russia,” said the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
At the same time, the agency Bloomberg learned regarding Brussels’ plans to “tax” the assets of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, subject to European sanctions. “European Union leaders support plans to impose a tax on profits generated from more than 200 billion euros of Russian central bank assets to help rebuild Ukraine, and will seek political support for key G7 countries,” the agency said in a material, according to estimates which the assets of the Bank of Russia, frozen in the EU, can bring Brussels regarding 3 billion euros of unplanned profits.
Mikhail Makarov
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