EXPERT COMMENT
The EU must tackle the challenge of rogue member states to fulfil its potential as a geostrategic actor.
The high-stakes EU summit in December 2023 resulted in accession negotiations for Ukraine and Moldova and candidate status for Georgia - thanks to a well-timed coffee break. As Hungary's Victor Orban sought to derail the decision on Ukraine, he was invited by the leaders of the other 26 member states to take a coffee break. As Orban left the room, they got a consensus to open negotiations and he got the €10 billion that had been frozen over Hungary's rule-of-law violations. He did however succeed in blocking €50 billion of aid to Ukraine - a lifeline for Ukraine's war-torn economy.
There are three main takeaways from the summit. First, while enlargement is a geostrategic instrument, EU institutions and member states have yet to develop the necessary techniques to deploy it without jeopardizing normative coherence. Second, European unity remains brittle, vulnerable to both internal and external challenges. Third, the EU can no longer ignore the problem of rogue member states and must deal with this challenge as a matter of both urgency and principle - coffee breaks will not suffice.
While an important breakthrough symbolically, the painful European Council decision-making process came across as dwindling Western support for Ukraine, something which also seemed to be reflected in the US. While Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, lobbied US Congress for more funds, Orban met with increasingly sceptical Republicans looking to block aid to Ukraine (albeit to undermine Biden's hopes for re-election).
It is clear that Orban's true motives have little to do with frozen funds or concerns for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, whose interests would certainly be better served with Ukraine inside the EU. He has also been blocking Sweden's accession to NATO and threatened to ‘correct' the EU's decision on Ukraine's accession. Aptly described as Putin's Trojan Horse , Orban's pursuit of ideological allies across the West suggests an intent to achieve the defeat of Ukraine and deliver a strategic blow to the liberal West, thereby undermining European security.
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