Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 25 January 2024
6. Deputy Brendan Howlin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs if he expects an agreement to be reached at the EU Council on the Special Fund for Ukraine; the discussions he has had with other EU Foreign Ministers on this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [3131/24]
View answerMy question concerns support for Ukraine. The ongoing onslaught on Ukraine by Russia is a daily occurrence. There are so many terrible events happening in the world that sometimes our focus on Ukraine is diminished. However, it will need the support of the EU just to maintain normal functioning as a state. I am interested to hear his view on whether that will come about.
Overall assistance to Ukraine pledged by the European Union and its member states to date amounts to approximately €85 billion, including financial, humanitarian, emergency, budgetary and military support. Discussions are ongoing at European Union level on a Commission proposal for a €50 billion Ukraine facility to cover the period 2024 to 2027. If agreed, this package will allow Ukraine to continue to pay wages and pensions, maintain essential public services, ensure macroeconomic stability and restore critical infrastructure destroyed by Russia. An agreement unfortunately could not be reached at the December European Council due to the decision of Hungary to use its veto. I am deeply disappointed by this failure to make progress. Ukraine urgently needs this multiannual, sustainable and predictable funding, and it is imperative that a consensus be reached at the first possible opportunity.
Ireland strongly supports the proposed Ukraine facility in its current form. I wish to see an agreement reached at the special European Council on 1 February. I raised this issue at the foreign affairs council in Brussels on Monday, where I emphasised the need for timely agreement on this new funding for Ukraine. I was encouraged to hear confirmation from the Hungarian foreign minister that he will meet foreign minister Kuleba and other Ukrainian senior officials in Ukraine next week. We need an early solution to break the impasse in order to get Ukraine the financial assistance it so desperately needs.
It is crystal clear that we cannot simply have a situation where one country, Hungary with Viktor Orbán, is simply blackmailing the rest of the European Union first for his own ends in terms of his unhidden support for Putin, but also to leverage other matters within the European Union so that there would be no sanctions against Hungary on the rule of law issues.
What specifically will happen if the Orbán blackmail continues? Particularly given the situation in Congress in United States it is not sustainable for Ukraine to continue without the promised multi-annual funding which is needed for its very survival.
I agree with the Deputy's assessment. For a number of months frustration has been building up over Hungary's position in respect of Ukraine. Hungary had originally identified some issues with Ukraine relating to the listing of one of its main banks. That was solved, or at least we thought it was resolved, when the agency involved delisted the bank and then there was a demand over its subsidiaries. An issue was raised over the treatment of minority Hungarian children in schools in Ukraine. There have also been talks on that but the goalposts seem to keep changing in respect of the demands from Ukraine. The Deputy will recall that at the last council meeting the Prime Minister of Hungary raised the ante suggesting he needed to look at the broader EU strategy towards Ukraine which had not been raised - certainly not at the FAC - for the previous two months.
I did detect from the Hungarian foreign minister on Monday a sense that there would be a genuine engagement with Ukraine next week in respect of this issue. The Deputy is correct. Europe has now modified its proposals - potentially it would be done on an annual basis, but even that has potential problems down the line.
I think most of us would agree that the objections of Hungary are contrived. The specifics regarding Ukraine are not real. It is a twofold attempt, first, to publicly manifest support for Russia and, second, to blackmail the rest of the EU Council into easing sanctions against Hungary over rule-of-law issues. I would be interested to hear the Tánaiste's view on that. I am also interested in hearing about the utterances of Prime Minister Orbán and his talks with the Slovak Prime Minister Fico over an alternative strategy for Ukraine. What does the Tánaiste know of that and how will that be dealt with?
I am not in disagreement with what the Deputy said. In addition, the aid package under the EPF has been held up because of Hungarian objection, which I think is serious in terms of the signal it sends because it strengthens Russia. Hungary has dependencies on Russia. One can draw conclusions from those dependencies. Are those dependencies influencing its position? It will vigorously deny that but nonetheless one has to consider that scenario because of its dependencies. I also take issue with the approach Hungary has adopted on Ukraine more generally. Russia violently violated the UN Charter. It is an existential threat for countries that neighbour Russia. We are geographically some distance away, but that is not the case for Lithuania and Latvia. I spoke to their foreign ministers on Monday. Their populations feel this sense much more now than at the beginning of the war.
What about the Fico discussions?
I am not fully au fait with what is going on there. I think there is a bit of grandstanding. It was clear that Slovakia was going to support Ukraine but maybe in different formats than it did before. That was an interesting contribution to be fair. It is not at this stage obstructionist or stopping anything that is happening.
