Prime Minister António Costa stated this Friday that the financial reserve of 50 billion euros to support Ukraine will have the green light in early 2024 with or without Hungary, given the Hungarian blockade, pending “negotiating efforts.”
“If Hungary continues in the same situation [de veto húngaro à reserva financeira]then 26 will advance on the board [do orçamento] of the European Union, preferably on a technical legal solution that allows, and if not available, on a multilateral or bilateral basis, macro-financial support to Ukraine,” declared the head of Government.
Speaking to Portuguese journalists in Brussels at the end of a two-day European Council marked by the lack of agreement on the long-term review of the EU budget, which includes financial support for Ukraine, António Costa noted that “what there was an agreement between 26 [líderes europeus, sem a Hungria] and then it stabilized.”
“Therefore, those traditional divisions between fruit and non-fruit, between what is fresh money and what is not fresh money, between what is realocações of other orçamentais verbas, all is so resolved and stabilized,” castu o primer Minister.
“If there were only 26 of us, everything would be approved, [mas] We are not 26 and we have to respect each other and that is why what we conceded was […] “Four or five weeks for there to be a negotiation effort and the necessary conditions can be found so that Hungary cannot prevent this approval,” he stated.
In the first of the European Council, which ended this morning, it was not possible to reach an agreement on the review of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2024-2027, which provides for a financial reserve of 50 billion euros to support reconstruction. and modernization of Ukraine.
Therefore, EU leaders are scheduled to meet again in an extraordinary summit, which will be held in January or February next year.
In this debate, which requires unanimity among European leaders, the same amount of 17 billion euros in subsidies for the modernization and reconstruction of Ukraine will be used, from a financial reserve of 50 billion euros (which still has 33 billion euros in loans), as the community executive had proposed.
Last night there was a Portuguese proposal on the table to move forward with only 26 Member States (sharing the burden among them), but there was no legal basis to support it.
The greatest difficulties in the negotiation of the MFF are related to the Hungarian position, which challenges the suspension of community funds to Budapest due to lack of respect for the rule of law and the payment of interest from the Recovery Fund, the amounts of which were also suspended.
The EU is also discussing the revision of the budget for the period 2024-2027, within which a financial reserve is planned for the next four years, with loans and subsidies for the reconstruction of post-war Ukraine, an amount that will be mobilized based on about the situation on the ground.
Source: TSF
