By BRUSSELS. Dec 15 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Prime Ministers of Estonia Kaja Kallas is convinced that the leaders of the European Union will find a solution that will allow further financial support for Ukraine.
“I can assure you that Ukraine will not be left without a [financial] support – there is a strong will of the 26 to provide this support, and there are different ways how we can do this. We will work this out probably we will have another meeting, maybe in January, to reach agreement on this. But definitely there is a strong will to do it, and to help Ukraine as much as possible,” she told reporters in Brussels on Friday upon her arrival on the second day of the European Council meeting. As you know, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed the revision of the EU budget, which provided for the allocation of 50 billion euros for Ukraine until 2027.
“We did not come to conclusions yesterday at night, it was a clear victory on the accession talks. There was no point to Hungary [Kallas hesitated as she searched for the right words, which led to a slight pause in her speech]… to give another good news. He [Orbán] doesn’t want to be part of it. ‘This is outside the budget, so you can do whatever you want, but I don’t want to be a part of it,’ is his explanation for this. But of course we have tools that are easier to use the tools that we already have than creating new tools. Democracy takes time, but Ukraine does not have that time. We have the political will and we will find the solution,” the Estonian Prime Minister said.
Asked whether the EU has problems with Orbán, Kallas said: “I have said several times: before as long as he says the wrong things but does the right things – we are OK, and we have been united so far and we were able to make a decision on the accession talks yesterday. It was interesting for the history book how it was done, but I won’t talk about this today. But we are all democracies, we all have different worries, so we listen to each other and try to find a solution.”
As you know, in order to make a decision on starting negotiations with Ukraine, Orban was asked to leave the meeting room. This format is provided for by the procedure of the European Council meeting and is called “constructive absence.” In the entire history of the EU, this format has never been used. Thus, the decision was taken by all 27 EU member states, with the tacit consent of Hungary, which did not use its veto.
