MOSCOW, February 1. /TASS/. The leaders of the European Union member states approved the allocation of long-term budget assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion euros over the next four years. President of the EU Council Charles Michel announced the approval of the package on the social network X just a few minutes after the start of the emergency EU summit in Brussels.

The EU will annually approve budget payments to Ukraine as part of a support program worth 50 billion euros, Reuters clarifies. This condition was demanded by Hungary, which blocked the allocation of aid to Ukraine at the previous EU summit. Budapest called on the EU to spend these funds to help the people of Europe.

TASS has collected the main facts about what happened at the EU summit.

Unanimous decision

On their second attempt the leaders of the EU member states approved the allocation of long-term budget assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 50 billion euros to be spread out over the next four years. Now budget funding for Ukraine will be reduced by 1.5 times compared to what it was in 2023. Last year, the European Union allocated 18 billion euros to Kiev, paying 1.5 billion euros per month, while the allocation of 50 billion euros over 4 years means payments of 1.02 billion euros per month.

The first attempt to approve aid to Ukraine was made at the EU summit on December 14-15, 2023. However, Hungary blocked the agreement. Budapest proposed to provide financial assistance to Kiev on an annual basis with strict control over the expenditure of funds. The European Union wanted to reach a unanimous decision with the participation of all 27 member countries.

As Hungary demanded, the EU will annually approve budget payments to Ukraine as part of a support program worth 50 billion euros, Reuters reports, citing diplomatic sources.

The 50 billion euros in assistance, which will last until the end of 2027, provides that the European Commission give Kiev a loan of 33 billion euros, and 17 billion euros "in the form of grants," which means they don’t have to be paid back.

The EU budget is adopted for a period of seven years. All available funds in the current EU budget plan for 2021-2027, which could be redistributed to support Kiev, were already fully spent in 2022-2023. To finance the new 50 billion euros for the remainder of the seven-year period, the European Commission called on EU countries to make new contributions to the EU budget.

Hungarian stance

Hungary stands firm that it is impossible to resolve the conflict in Ukraine by military means. It advocated for peace negotiations and opposed sending weapons there. As they pointed out in Budapest, the allocation of 50 billion euros from the EU to Ukraine "is within the framework of a military solution." As Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, the European people themselves need these funds, as they face an ever-tougher economic situation.

Orban indicated that the European Union should provide financial assistance to Ukraine, but in such a way that it would not eat into the organization’s budget. According to him, Hungary opposed EU countries taking out a common loan to provide financial assistance to Ukraine. He believed that for this purpose a special fund should be created, which could receive funds from both public and private sources.

In late January, Minister of Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations of Hungary, Peter Szijjarto, said that Budapest is ready for a compromise - to annually approve, in compliance with the principle of unanimity, the provision of funds from the EU budget to Ukraine.

Orban also said that despite the compromise proposed by Budapest, he does not support using the EU budget for this purpose "and the Hungarian people don’t like it either," but "European unity is a value" that should be cherished.

Backup plan

EC President Ursula von der Leyen said in early January that the European Commission was preparing a backup aid plan for Ukraine if no agreement was reached at the summit. However, she did not provide details.

As the Financial Times wrote, the EU was scheming to undermine the Hungarian economy, if Budapest did not agree to finance Kiev. According to the publication, Brussels threatened Budapest to completely freeze funds owed to Hungary and collapse the exchange rate of the national currency, the forint, in order to harm the country’s economy and reduce its attractiveness for investors.

The Financial Times reported that the European Union could also use Article 7 of the 2007 Treaty on the European Union and deprive Hungary of its voting rights if it refuses to allocate funds to Ukraine. However, the European Commission stated that it does not intend and does not have the authority to independently initiate a procedure to deprive Hungary of its voting rights. Only the member countries of the European Union have the right to do this.