The EU Needs a Better Response to Viktor Orban

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s agreement to lift his hold on €50 billion of financial support for Ukraine marks an important victory for both Kyiv and the European Union. The long-term funding is essential to keeping Ukraine’s government and public services running. The EU’s success in standing up to Orban will bolster the bloc’s credibility and capacity to function. Even so, Europe’s leaders need to examine the reasons for the impasse and how to prevent it from happening again.

That it took months of wrangling and an emergency summit illustrates the limits of the EU’s approach to decision-making. Because of the EU’s insistence on unanimity in certain areas, any single member can veto action by the entire group. Orban objected to Kyiv’s record on fighting corruption and argues negotiations with Russia would deliver a faster end to the war. That’s largely a smokescreen: Hungary ranks as the most corrupt EU member state, and Orban’s long-standing coziness with Russian President Vladimir Putin belies any claims that he’s an honest broker.