European leaders are meeting to discuss financial aid for Ukraine and the ongoing standoff about it.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban vetoed a €50bn aid package for Kyiv last December, and Polish PM Donald Tusk said he could not accept Mr Orban’s stance.
Protests by farmers are also taking place as over a thousand tractors blocked the streets around the European quarter in Brussels on Thursday morning.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has questioned the idea of committing to fund Ukraine for the next four years and the EU’s withholding of €20bn of funds for Hungary because of concerns about human rights and corruption in the country has caused tension.
The second anniversary of Russia’s invasion approaches and as such, funds have not reached Ukraine due to Hungary’s opposition.
The summit is also taking place against the backdrop of weeks-long farmers’ protests which have affected most major European countries. Farmers are protesting against measures implemented by the EU aimed at making the agricultural sector more sustainable, and the bloc’s decision to lift quotas on Ukrainian grain exports.
The size and duration of the farmers’ protests have spooked many European leaders, and the European Commission has proposed an exemption to an unpopular fallow-land requirement, and said the EU would introduce a “safeguard mechanism” that would allow it to reimpose emergency tariffs on Ukraine if an excess of imports threatened to destabilise the market.
The summit is expected to last into the night and discussions on potential punitive action by the EU are underway.
